Code:Changes Reloaded
by The Old Rycr
Summary: Code : Changes Rewritten. It's still the same battle, and yet it's totally different. How will everybody cope with a new friend, new relationships, a new battlefield, and a new enemy? Will they be swept away by the tides of change?
1. A Change of Tactics

_Merry Christmas! This is my gift to old fans and newcomers alike. The Code : Changes series is finally over, but the beginning needs some work. So, here's the rewritten version of my very first story! There will be longer chapters and more of them, and I'll try to put in more fluff too, since the old story was lacking a bit in that department. Anyway, here's the disclaimer._

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own Code Lyoko, or any characters, locations, or storylines associated with Code Lyoko. I do, however, own the plot for this story and my OC, Kirsten, whom you should know about if you read the original Code : Changes._

_Anyway, I finally reread Code : Changes, and I nearly cried in shame. I mean, I keep switching between present and past tense (says/said, runs/ran, etc.), and it's too rushed. Since I've improved a lot since I wrote it more than a year ago, I decided to redo it. There might be some new stuff in here as well!_

_Anyway, I'll try not to rush it as much as last time._

_So, on to Code: Changes Reloaded! Here's more than 2500 words for your enjoyment!_

* * *

_Chapter 1 – A Change of Tactics_

* * *

Odd grimaced as he leapt behind a tree in the forest sector. They were fighting XANA, as usual, but he had no idea why. XANA had activated a tower, but nobody knew what his attack would entail. Rather than waiting to find out, Jeremie had gone ahead and sent them all to Lyoko to prevent XANA from attacking at all.

When every return to the past increased XANA's power, Jeremie couldn't just do it whenever he wanted. If he could avoid letting XANA begin its attack, then he could avoid risking an increase in XANA's power in order to erase the attack from the world.

Odd's characteristic humor and sarcasm was gone. He was tired and fed up with XANA attacking at night all the time. His overboard had long been devirtualized, and he was running low on life points and arrows, as usual.

"School during the day…fighting XANA at night…" he muttered. "When am I supposed to sleep?!"

With a growl, he threw himself out from behind the tree and yelled "LASER ARROW!" as he fired at a crab. He was careless for a moment as he searched for a new target, and paid for that carelessness when a crab fired at his exposed back and took away his last ten life points. He swore loudly as his virtual body decomposed into a wireframe, then blinked out of existence.

* * *

Jeremie watched as Odd's life points fell to zero. He rolled his eyes. Odd was always the first to go. He was just too reckless.

But wait…what was this? Odd's profile card remained on the screen for a moment. Then it faded out as a new window appeared.

_SYSTEM ANOMALY: DATA ACCESS ERROR_

"Huh?" he muttered quietly. "What's wrong?"

* * *

Odd believed that the next thing he would see would be the doors of the scanner, which would promptly open to let him out. You can imagine his surprise when he opened his eyes and saw nothing but whiteness.

"What the…Where am I?" he asked out loud. "Did I actually die?"

When there was no answer, he sniffed and smelled nothing.

"Nah, I don't smell any fire or brimstone."

He abruptly felt himself being tugged in two directions and looked around. On his left was his Lyoko avatar, while on his right was his normal, real-world self. It seemed that he was stuck between them. This occurrence only lasted a moment, but it would affect his life for years to come.

Suddenly, the pulling ceased, and his two selves, real and virtual, came together. After that, he suddenly found himself in the scanner. The doors opened and he tumbled out with a groan, suddenly not feeling well.

* * *

Back in Lyoko, Ulrich was locked in a furious battle with a megatank. For some reason, this one was being very cautious, only opening when it was absolutely sure it would get a shot off without exposing its weak point for too long.

Once again, it opened and began to charge. He closed his eyes and leapt to the side the moment he heard the shot. If he were able to feel on Lyoko, he would have felt the heat of the beam passing inches from his face.

He shouted "Triplicate!" and created the usual two clones as the megatank reopened and once again began to charge. As it turned to one of his clones, both he and his other clone supersprinted up to the monster. It fired, and as the clone devirtualized, Ulrich stabbed the megatank right in the center of XANA's emblem. It exploded, but he was already gone, headed towards Yumi, who was fighting a swarm of hornets.

"Be careful you two," Jeremie advised, his voice seeming to come out of nowhere. "You are both low on life points. You can't afford to get hit again. Odd's already gone, as usual, so it's just you and Aelita."

Nobody replied, as Ulrich had already engaged the hornets and neither of them could afford to loose concentration.

After Yumi blocked a laser with one of her fans, she threw the other at one of the five hornets and hit it dead-on. She caught it and immediately threw both of them at two more. She left the other two for Ulrich to handle as she ran for Aelita. Maybe they could sneak towards the tower unnoticed.

Alas, it was not to be. One of the hornets shot a laser towards her and hit her in the shoulder. She was quickly devirtualized. Aelita gasped and immediately ran for the tower. Ulrich glanced over just as she ran into it and smiled, surrendering to the hornets. He was promptly sent back to the real world.

* * *

Aelita walked towards the center of the platform. When she reached it, she felt as if the gravity around her had been turned off, and she pushed off gently to rise up to the top of the tower. As she passed by the second platform, she gradually felt herself lose her weightless feeling.

When she was standing on the platform, she walked forward until a screen appeared. She placed her hand on it.

_AELITA_, the screen read in big blue letters. Her name faded to be replaced by a new word:

CODE

Without moving a finger, she typed in the word LYOKO.

* * *

Jeremie started as a window appeared on his screen.

"What the…" he said. "How did XANA gain control of—"

Any other words he might have spoken were drowned in a wave of white light.

* * *

Odd woke up in the morning when Ulrich slapped his face.

"Wake up sleepy," he told his friend and roommate. "Guess what day it is!"

"Saturday," came the muffled answer. "Now why in the name of XANA did you wake me up so early?"

"Because it's still Friday," Ulrich answered.

"Oh."

_One...two...three...four...five— _

"WHAT?!" Odd exclaimed as he shot out of bed.

"And it's a new record!" Ulrich announced with a deep voice. "Five seconds, one of Odd's shortest morning reaction times ever!"

"Since when were you the joker?" Odd asked his friend.

"Since I met Sissi," Ulrich replied smartly. "You usually just beat me to the punchline."

Odd began to laugh, then stopped as something intruded into his sleep-filled mind.

"Say, Ulrich," he began. "When you were devirtualized, did anything weird happen? Like anything that doesn't usually happen?"

Ulrich raised an eyebrow. "Actually, yeah," he answered. "Everything went white. I felt myself being pulled apart, and saw my real world self on one side and my Lyoko self on the other side. And then—"

"Your two selves came together, right?" Odd finished. "The same thing happened to me."

"Let's go see if Jeremie knows anything about it," Ulrich suggested.

Odd nodded. "Great idea," he answered. "He should know…oh crud."

"What?"

"I have to redo the entire day of classes!!! This sucks!!!"

Ulrich smiled. "You're telling me?" he asked. "Maybe I'll do better on that math test this time."

"Hmm…" Odd pretended to think. "Nah. You'll still fail, even if you repeat it another ten times. Math just isn't right for you."

"At least my grades aren't as low as yours."

"I never said it was right for me, either."

* * *

When they arrived at Jeremie's room, they found Yumi and Aelita already there.

"Jeremie—" Ulrich tried to say.

"Yes, I know," Jeremie interrupted as he was typing on his computer. "Something weird happened during the devirtualization. I'm working on it. XANA somehow managed to break past my barrier to run the return to the past too."

They waited as Jeremie typed. Odd and Ulrich began talking about the test they were going to have that day.

"Come on, Jeremie," Yumi urged. "School starts soon!"

He nodded. "Okay, I think I've got it," he began to explain. "Well, you know that when you are virtualized, your genetic code is copied into the computer, matched with your profile, then stored in memory until you are devirtualized. Your body is also deconstructed and information about every molecule is stored as well. Basically, parts of your genetic code were deleted, so the supercomputer had to splice in parts of your virtual DNA, or vDNA, which is the genetic code that determines what you are on Lyoko and is stored in your profile."

Aelita nodded, while the other three just exchanged confused glances. Odd was the first to speak up.

"Um, Jeremie, I'm sure you and Aelita both understand what you're talking about, but as for the rest of us, I would like to ask you something," He said. "And that is…huh?"

Jeremie sighed. "Basically," he said. "You have small parts of your Lyoko selves inside you now. I don't know what parts were replaced, but I expect you soon will. Now, we have to go get breakfast before it's too late."

All five of them stood up and left Jeremie's room, headed towards the cafeteria.

* * *

The next morning, Ulrich was walking back from the cafeteria when he saw Yumi walking towards the dorms with a big box. Curious, he followed her until he saw her walk into an empty dorm. He raised an eyebrow and followed her.

"Yumi?" he asked.

She put down the box and turned around. "Yeah?" she replied. "Oh, you're probably wondering what I'm doing. Well, my parents are moving out to Marseille, but they decided to get me a dorm and let me stay here."

Ulrich smiled. "That's great! I'm glad you're staying," he said. "Um…because…we need you to help us fight XANA…yeah…" He blushed lightly.

Yumi nodded hesitantly. "Um…yeah…okay…"

They stared at each other for a few moments before Yumi snapped out of it. "So…I gotta finish moving in, okay?"

Ulrich nodded and left, leaving a red-faced Yumi standing completely still, staring vaguely in the direction of her open doorway. After a few moments, she shook herself out of her stupor and began unpacking the various boxes around the room.

* * *

Yumi took a break after finishing her unpacking on Monday morning. She sat on her bed with her legs crossed and tried to clear her chaotic mind.

She was only able to use her telekinesis on Lyoko when her mind was clear, and she'd had a lot on her mind for the past week or two. She could barely concentrate enough to tip over a kankrelat.

So, she cleared her mind, then opened her eyes and picked an object in her room, a pencil in this case. Then she pretended she was on Lyoko and tried to lift it. Usually, when she used her telekinesis on Lyoko, she felt some sort of shift in her mind. Obviously, she never felt it in the real world.

Except this time, she felt it. Her eyes snapped open just in time to see her pencil fall down on her desk from two feet above it.

"No way," she muttered. "Did I just…"

She tried it again with a book on her bed, but kept her eyes opened, and was rewarded with the sight of it floating right before her eyes!

Then the bell rang and the book fell.

"I have to tell Jeremie after school."

* * *

Odd really tried to stay awake during Science class. He really did! But he couldn't resist the sweet temptation of sleep, and his head began to droop. A minute later, he was already asleep.

He felt himself wake up and saw that he was in math class.

"Huh?" he asked out loud. "How did I get here? Did I sleepwalk again?"

He turned and looked at Ulrich, who was sitting next to him. "Did you—" he began to ask.

Then he saw that Ulrich was showing him a paper with a large "B–" written on it.

"Awesome!" he heard himself say, without actually saying it. "I guess taking a test twice actually **_does_** improve your grade! Who would've known? Good job."

Then he woke up again and was back in science class.

_Woah...that was weird,_ he thought.

* * *

"Here are your tests from yesterday," the math teacher told her class. "Most of you did not do well at all, but some of you, surprisingly, managed to score above an eighty percent, and two people scored above a hundred."

"Let me guess," Odd whispered to Ulrich, rubbing his temples. "Einstein and Herb."

"Of course," was Ulrich's reply. "Let's see what we got."

"Did you get a C for once?" Odd asked him.

Ulrich just handed him his paper without a word. There was a "B–" written in red ink at the top.

"Awesome!" he said. "I guess taking a test twice actually **_does_** improve your grade! Who would've known? Good job."

Then he gasped. "Woah," he muttered quietly. "Déjà vu."

"What?" Ulrich asked.

"Nothing," was the reply. "Never mind."

* * *

After the last bell rang, Odd and Ulrich started walking back to their dorm. On the way, Ulrich's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered it.

"Hello?" he said. "Yes...okay...be right there...bye."

He hung up and turned to Odd. "Let's go to Jeremie's room."

When they arrived, Yumi was sitting on the bed looking extremely confused, Jeremie was typing on his computer, as usual, and Aelita was watching him. He heard them enter and turned around.

"Ulrich, I need to see something." He said. "Just pretend you're on Lyoko for a second and use your Triplicate power, okay?"

Ulrich raised an eyebrow. "Um...okay," he said. "Triplicate!"

There were suddenly three Ulrichs standing in the room, side-by-side.

"Holy…Jeremie, what the hell is going on?!" he half-yelled.

"Well," Jeremie began, "apparently you are all now able to use your Lyoko powers in the real world. That's the part of your virtual selves that was fused with your real selves. That's also why nothing happened in the real world during XANA's attack. He tried to delete your DNA from the scanner memory so you would disappear forever if you were devirtualized."

Odd gasped. "Oh, so _that's_ what happened! I had a vision during science class that came true, but I just thought I had fallen asleep and dreamed it."

"Anyway, now all four of you can use your powers outside of Lyoko," Jeremie repeated. "Ulrich, I suggest you get rid of your clones before Jim walks in on us. He might not be able to handle seeing three of you."

Ulrich nodded. "Right…Fusion!"

The other two Ulrichs disappeared.

* * *

_Well, that's it for chapter one! Man, it's SOOO much longer than the original! Like...more than twice as long! Anyway, tell me what you think! I can't wait to hear from you! _

_So, there were a few changes and stuff, but it's mostly the same at this point. Later on I might add some stuff, just to confuse those of you who read the original. I've changed all the chapter titles too, and some chapters might be divided differently from before. Combat situations and the like are probably gonna change too. _

_Please review and tell me what you think!!!_


	2. A Change of Homes

_Well, here's chapter two! I know I said that it would be up on Friday, maybe even Thursday, but I was too busy to finish editing it until now. Well, actually I was just being lazy... _

_I have a message for all my readers: _

_PLEASE REVIEW!!! _

_I accept anonymous reviews, so you have no excuse. I want input, here! _

_This chapter is dedicated to StrugglingArtist, the first one to review this story. _

_------------------------------ _

_Chapter 2 – A Change of Homes _

_------------------------------ _

Hazel eyes peered out through the window of the airplane flying above the clouds. They took in the bumps and shapes of the fluffy whiteness not far below. Those eyes belonged to a brown-haired girl of thirteen, who was on her way to France. Unfortunately, she was not very happy about the trip. She turned to look to her right, and saw the woman sitting next to her.

"Mom, I don't want to move to France!" she complained. "I liked living in California!"

"Kirsten," the woman, obviously her mother, replied with a sigh, "I got a better job offer there, and the school there has very high standards. Besides, your French is already flawless."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "Um...how high are those standards?" she asked.

"It's a private school," was the reply, "a private boarding school."

"WHAT?!" her daughter nearly yelled. "You never told me I had to go to a private school!" She crossed her arms and sighed, looking out the window again.

"It's okay, there are no uniforms or anything, and the students there are very nice. You should have no trouble making new friends."

Kirsten sighed loudly, still looking out the window. "Well, I like my old friends," she said softly, "and my school, even though it's under construction." That was true. Her school had received more funds due to some new government plan, and was right in the middle of being revamped completely. They already had a new cafeteria, library, Choir building, and video production studio. It was annoying most of the students though, since half of the classes were in portables for the next several years.

Her mother rolled her eyes, fed up with her disagreeable daughter. "Fine," she said. "Have fun getting back to California. I think we're right above the Atlantic Ocean right now, but I'm sure the plane has at least _one_ parachute."

Kirsten just slumped in her seat and looked down. "Oh, forget it," she muttered. "I just wish you had given me time to say goodbye to all my friends, or go to the Homecoming Dance..."

_Even though I didn't have a date,_ she mentally added.

_------------------------------ _

Kirsten listened to the Principal as he answered any questions she had about the school. When she had asked every possible question she could, and still hadn't gotten him to lose his patience, she finally admitted defeat and said she had no more questions.

"Very well," Principal Delmas said. "On behalf of the staff and students here at Kadic Academy, I would like to be the first to welcome you to our fine establishment."

"Um...yeah," Kirsten muttered during a pause in his speech.

"My daughter, Elisabeth," he continued, "will show you to your dorm. Your roommate, Aelita Stones, is in the same classes as you are, so she should be able to help you find your way around tomorrow. I already had somebody carry your boxes to your dorm."

She nodded and walked out the door, running straight into somebody just as the door closed.

She stepped back and looked at the person in front of her. The girl she had run into had long black hair held back by a yellow headband. She wore a bright pink t-shirt and a dark red skirt over darker red pants.

"Um…are you Elisabeth?"

The girl clenched her teeth. "Yes!" she yelled, already pissed off that some new student had the gall to run into _her_, of all people. "And call me Sissi. I hate being called Elisabeth."

Kirsten, being the joker she was, couldn't resist a small joke at Sissi's expense.

"Sissi, huh? Are you a sissy then? Sissi the sissy…" she trailed off and started laughing.

Sissi's face, which was already red, turned a dangerous shade of purple. "You…" she muttered. Then she completely lost her temper. "YOU'LL REGRET THIS!" she yelled right into the new girl's face. "I'M LEAVING! GO GET LOST ON YOUR OWN!"

Kirsten laughed as Sissi started to walk away, then suddenly stopped as she realized her mistake.

"Wait!" she called out halfheartedly, but Sissi was already gone. "Damn it. Now I can't find my dorm."

She stood there, completely lost, until she heard a yell out of nowhere.

"COMING THROUGH!" a boy's voice yelled. She looked up from the ground just in time to see a purple and yellow blur run right into her. They both fell to the ground in a heap.

A boy dressed in green ran up a second later and skidded to a stop when he saw what had happened. He rolled his eyes. "Sorry about that," he said. "My friend here was a bit too eager to show me something..." He trailed off as the one who had run into her stood up. "Say," he said a moment later. "Are you new here?"

She nodded, still lying on the ground. "Yeah," she replied. "I'm Kirsten Anderson."

"I'm Ulrich Stern," the green-clad boy answered. "And that guy who ran into you is Odd"

Kirsten looked at her assailant for the first time. He wore a combination of pink and purple. He had a matching spot of purple in his blond hair, which was gelled up into a giant spike.

"You can say that again," she muttered.

Odd sighed, used to that reaction. He offered his hand to her. "So are you going to lie on the floor all day, or will you let me pull you up?" he asked.

She grinned and accepted the hand, already liking the boy. She let herself be pulled up and held on perhaps a moment longer than necessary, though neither of them noticed. Ulrich grinned once she finally let go.

"And for your information," the spike-haired boy said, "my name is actually Odd, Odd Della Robbia. Fitting, huh?"

She smiled. "You can say that again. That's a funny name, but not as funny as Sissi."

The boy who had called himself Ulrich smiled. "Ah, so you already met her. Hate her all you want, nearly everybody else in the school does."

"Ah," Kirsten muttered, understanding. "She's one of _those_, huh? Anyway, she was showing me around, but she didn't seem to like it when I called her a sissy for some reason. Can't imagine why...her name _is_ Sissi, after all."

Odd grinned, already liking the girl. "So, she was going to show you to your dorm, right?" he asked her. She nodded and Ulrich sighed.

"Odd," he said, "you show her around. I've still got homework to do. And please leave me alone this time, just show me whatever you were going to show me _after_ I'm done, okay?"

"Sure," Odd acknowledged. "Kirsten, what's your dorm number?"

"Um...I think it's one-ninety-four," she replied, suddenly curious when Odd grinned.

"That's Aelita's dorm!" he exclaimed.

"You know her?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes. "No, of course not," he said with a sarcastic voice. "I just talk to her on a daily basis."

"Oh, just bring me to her dorm," she told the master of sarcasm.

"Okay," he replied. "It's also your dorm now."

She just rolled her eyes and followed him down the hallway,

_------------------------------ _

During science the next day, Ulrich stared out the window and watched clouds go past. He was deep in thought, and didn't notice as Odd poked him several times. Kirsten, who was sitting behind Odd, snickered slightly. Finally Odd decided to go with his foolproof method of gaining his friend's attention.

"Oh Ulrich," he whispered, "thinking about Yumi, right?"

Ulrich twitched and whirled around to face his friend. Kirsten started giggling quietly at their antics. Aelita, who was sitting next to her, joined in.

"Am not," Ulrich whispered back. "Just zoning out!"

Odd just looked at him with a smile on his face as the girls behind them continued to muffle giggles. Ulrich sighed.

"Is it that obvious?" he asked, cringing as he waited for his answer.

"Yes," Odd replied. "If you love her so much, go tell her!"

Ulrich started to roll his eyes, then stopped as a grin lit up his face. Odd's face paled as he saw the grin. Ulrich's "evil grin" was never a good sign.

"Fine, I will," the brunette said. He then raised his voice, "Mrs. Hertz? May I please go to the bathroom?"

She looked up, slightly distracted as he had just interrupted a lecture, and nodded. "Of course," she told him.

Ulrich stood up and walked out while Odd, Kirsten, and Aelita stared at him. Jeremie, who was sitting one table over from Odd and Ulrich's table, was too absorbed in his laptop to notice.

"I didn't mean right _now_," Odd muttered as Kirsten and Aelita giggled again. He turned to the girls and sighed.

"Would you stop that?!" he nearly yelled, remembering to whisper at the last moment. "It's getting annoying!"

The girls really tried to stop laughing, but they couldn't. Aelita was laughing just because that's who she is, and Kirsten was laughing because she'd had one too many cups of coffee that morning.

_------------------------------ _

Ulrich stood outside the door of Yumi's classroom, trying to work up the courage to do what he was about to do. This would also be a test of his powers in the real world. He whispered, "Supersprint."

Yumi was sitting in her desk in math class, working on a practice problem, when she suddenly heard the door creak open. She looked up just in time to see a flash of yellow and feel a gust of wind. She looked down at her desk and saw a folded piece of paper that hadn't been there a moment ago. She smiled as she unfolded the note from Ulrich.

_Yumi, meet me after school. I have something important to tell you. –Ulrich, as if you didn't know. _

She smiled as she closed her eyes and concentrated.

_------------------------------ _

Ulrich came back from his trip to the bathroom, sitting down at his desk as Odd just gaped. He just grinned at his blond friend. He went to pick up his pencil, but was surprised to find it already floating above a blank sheet of paper, about to write.

Just as Odd managed to close his mouth, he saw the floating pencil and his jaw dropped again. The pencil began to write on its own.

_Got your note. These powers are very useful, huh? How about we meet in the gym? It'll be empty after school. –Yumi, obviously _

_------------------------------ _

"So, Ulrich, what did you want to talk about?" Yumi asked him as he entered the empty gym.

"Um…well…" he muttered, unsure of what to say next. "I wanted to talk about…us."

"Hmm?" she muttered, not daring to let herself hope. She'd been disappointed too many times before.

"Well…you're…the best friend I've ever had…" he started to say, trailing off again. Her shoulders slumped.

_Best friend?_ she asked herself,_ That's all I am to you? What if I want to be so much more?_

"But I want you to be so much more," he said in a whisper, almost impossible to hear.

Her mind was jerked back to the present. He had said exactly what she had been thinking. She took a moment to casually pinch her arm.

_Ow...okay, I'm not dreaming... _

"I…" she couldn't say anything. She was completely speechless.

Ulrich sighed. "I understand if you don't," he said, his words beginning to come easier. "I just had to get it off my chest."

"But, I do," she whispered as he leaned closer to hear her. "I love you too."

He leaned in even closer, and their lips barely touched. Then Ulrich's cell phone rang. He pulled away from the almost-kiss to answer it, as Yumi cursed her luck.

"Odd," Ulrich said, sounding pissed off, "now is not a good time. What do you want?"

Yumi just waited, blushing, and more uncomfortable than she had ever been around Ulrich before.

"Yeah, she's with me…oh, really? Damn. Okay…right…be right there," he said. He hung up and put the phone back in his pocket.

"What did Odd want?" Yumi asked him, still blushing. She noticed that he was blushing too.

"It's XANA, as usual. We have to head straight to the factory right now. He, Jeremie, and Aelita are already there."

Yumi smiled. "Horrible timing, huh?"

Ulrich rolled his eyes. "No kidding…" he answered. "Come on."

He grabbed her hand, both blushing at the touch, and ran with her to the boiler room and on to the secret passage.

_------------------------------ _

The elevator door opened to reveal Ulrich and Yumi, standing closer than usual and holding hands.

Odd was the first to look up. The moment he did, he grinned. "Finally did it, eh?" he asked them. "You've only been pining after each other since you first met all those years ago. It didn't take you long."

"NO! I mean…well…maybe…yeah…" they replied in unison.

Jeremie turned away from the computer screen. "We'll talk about it later," he said. "XANA's in the middle of an attack, so let's get onto Lyoko and stop it as fast as possible!"

There was a loud rumble in the room. Everybody wondered what it was until they saw Odd with his hand on his stomach.

"Um…" he muttered. "I second that. Tonight's soup night!"

Jeremie looked awkward suddenly. "Well, we might need a return to the past," he told them. "Because XANA's attack involves the soup."

Odd raised an eyebrow, confused. The others had similar expressions. Jeremie sighed and continued.

"XANA possessed Rosa, the cook, and started hurling steaming soup surprise at people," he stated quietly.

Complete silence reigned for a whole thirty seconds. Then Odd burst out laughing. The others, even Jeremie, followed soon after. Once Odd had calmed down enough, he tried to speak.

"Is that…" he started to ask before pausing for a quick chuckle, "all it could think of?"

"I guess so," Ulrich said with a chuckle, "but everybody knows how toxic that stuff is."

"Yeah, I know," Odd said, disappointed that they would have to return to the past. "let's just get to Lyoko."

Jeremie began typing as the other four went down to the scanners.

"Ready," Jeremie's voice said over the intercom as Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi got in the scanners. The doors closed, leaving Aelita alone in the room for the moment.

"Transfer," Jeremie said. The scanners came to life and began the process.

"Scanner," he said next. Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi floated up into the air in their scanners.

"Virtualization!" There was a rush of air, and all three scanners opened to reveal that they were empty.

_------------------------------ _

The three warriors appeared in the mountain sector. Odd glanced around, smiling.

"Man, I wish XANA would choose this sector more than the desert sector," he said as he continued to look around. "I love the scenery here!"

Yumi rolled her eyes. "You can appreciate the scenery as you become the first of us to be devirtualized," she told him.

"Hey!" Odd exclaimed. "That's not nice!"

"Continue your argument later," said Jeremie's irritated voice, which came from the empty sky, as usual. "I'm sending Aelita in."

They waited until Aelita was deposited at their feet. "The tower is due north," Jeremie said as she stood up from the crouch she had landed in. "Here are your vehicles."

As he finished talking, the overboard, overwing, and overbike appeared in front of their respective users. Odd backflipped onto the overboard and was already far ahead by the time Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita were on their vehicles.

_------------------------------ _

"Guys," Jeremie warned, "There are two tarantulas, a megatank, and three blocks guarding the tower."

Odd grinned and pulled back the glove on his lower right arm, hearing a satisfying click as the arrow launcher was loaded. "Well, it looks like XANA has gone all out on this one," he said. "What are we waiting for?"

Ulrich answered by revving his overbike and retracting the wheel, flying over to one of the tarantulas. Yumi, and Odd went for a megatank while Aelita jumped off and hid behind a rock.

Ulrich's overbike touched down in front of one of the tarantulas as he pulled out his katana. He continued moving straight towards it, dodging the lasers it was shooting by swerving back and forth. Just before he reached it, he leapt off the overbike. It continued moving while he flipped up and over the tarantula. When he was completely upside down, he thrust with his sword and sliced the head of the tarantula. It exploded as he landed back on his overbike and zoomed towards the other one.

Yumi threw her fans at the megatank, but it closed and they both glanced off and returned to her hands. Odd shot five laser arrows after it opened again, but missed every time. Meanwhile, their opponent finished charging and shot a laser at Odd. He swerved away and dodged it at the last second, but it caught the edge of his overboard, which devirtualized and dumped him on the ground. He grumbled as he stood up and dodged lasers from the blocks, deciding to go after them for now.

Yumi dropped her fans onto the ground and flew over the megatank. It followed her, still closed after the last shot. When it began to open, Yumi concentrated and used her telekinesis on her fans. The tank fired just as her fans lifted up and hit it. The laser hit Yumi just before it was destroyed, devirtualizing her overwing and dropping her to the ground. She rolled and landed back on her feet, then ran over to help Odd with the blocks. She flipped up into the air to sail over the blocks. However, she didn't see a stray shot from a tarantula, and was devirtualized in mid-air before tossing her fans.

Ulrich was back on the ground and looping around the remaining tarantula to avoid its lasers. He shouted "Triplicate!" as he leapt off the overbike, which slid towards the tarantula and caused it to stumble over it. He and his two clones supersprinted towards the monster, swords already out. When they got close, they started weaving back and forth in different directions. The tarantula managed to take one of them out, but it was just his clone. The other two both leapt up and stabbed the tarantula. It exploded and destroyed his other clone.

Odd, meanwhile, had his hands full fighting the blocks. He had managed to get a shot in on one of them, but he still had two left and he just couldn't _hit_ the cursed things! He kept running around and leaping over them to avoid laser fire. A yellow blur zoomed past and destroyed one of the blocks just as Odd got a lucky shot in and destroyed the other.

Aelita looked out from behind her rock and saw that the coast was clear. She was about to run for the tower, but she was snagged around the waist from behind. As she was lifted up in the air and turned around, she yelled for help. She had been captured by the Scyphozoa. She saw the three tentacles point at her head, and suddenly felt a part of herself begin to drain away.

Ulrich and Odd heard her cry and raced to rescue her, while Jeremie yelled at them, telling them to hurry up. They finally reached the Scyphozoa as Jeremie announced that Aelita's memory was nearly gone. Ulrich hacked off the tentacles holding her and she crumpled to the ground. Odd shot a couple laser arrows at it for good measure as it floated away.

"That thing is getting annoying!" Odd exclaimed. "I wish we could just destroy it or something."

Ulrich nodded as Aelita stood up and shook her head slightly. With a wave, she ran towards the tower. The other two watched as she melted through the tower wall, then relaxed as they waited for the return to the past.

_------------------------------ _

Aelita ran to the center of the platform. She rose slowly to the top, then walked to the center of the upper platform and placed her hand on the screen.

_AELITA_ flashed on the screen. She took her hand away as the word _CODE_ appeared.

_LYOKO_ appeared below the word, and all of the many screens that were on the tower's wall fell to the darkness below. A bright white light rose from the bottom of the tower and expanded until it covered the entire virtual world.

Then the light came out into the real world, consuming it as well.

_------------------------------ _

_Well, that's it for this chapter! It's more than 3000 words!!! Not only that, but it's not even the entire original Chapter 2. The rest of it will be added on to chapter 3, since I thought this was a good place to end this chapter. _

_So, good? Bad? I want your thoughts here! Please review! I know that there are tons of people who read without reviewing. I have this nice little stats page that tells me that. Please review, even if you don't have an account! I accept anonymous reviews, you know... _

_So please review!_


	3. A Change of Memory

**EDIT:** Plot hole fixed. Odd was devirtualized, then suddenly back on Lyoko. What the heck was I thinking?

_Well, here's chapter three! It's very different from the original chapter three, as it contains half of the original chapter 2. This is also the first chapter that shows a major overhaul of the plot. _

_Also, for those of you who read the original, I'm changing Kirsten's Lyoko clothing. It was too simplistic before, so I redesigned her outfit and gave her a different weapon. Maybe I'll add something in the end that explains why her costume is different in the sequel, though I might rewrite that at some point too. Definitely not for a while though. _

_So, go read the chapter! Oh, almost forgot: I don't own Code Lyoko, but Kirsten is mine. If you take her, you die. I'll sic XANA on you. Seriously. I'll use my nifty Author Powers to possess somebody and have him or her kill you. _

_What? I'm serious! _

_Anyway, on to the chapter. _

_------------------------------ _

_Chapter 3 – A Change of Memory _

_------------------------------ _

Sissi's face, which was already red, turned a dangerous shade of purple. "You…" she muttered. Then she completely lost her temper. "YOU'LL REGRET THIS!" she yelled right into the new girl's face. "I'M LEAVING! GO GET LOST ON YOUR OWN!"

Kirsten laughed as Sissi started to walk away, then suddenly stopped as she realized her mistake.

"Wait!" she called out halfheartedly, but Sissi was already gone. "Damn it. Now I can't find my dorm."

She stood there, completely lost, until she heard two people walk up behind her. She turned around and saw a boy with spiky blond and purple hair and purple and yellow clothes standing next to a brown-haired boy wearing all green.

"Hey there!" the blond one said. "Are you new?"

Kirsten, who had been staring at the blond in wonder, blinked and nodded. "Uh, yeah," she muttered. "I just arrived this morning. Some girl named Sissi was showing me to my dorm, but I made fun of her and she left." She continued staring at the strange boy.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," he said as the brunette waved to him and walked off down the hall. "Your welcoming committee was Sissi, of all people? You must hate this school already!"

She laughed. "Well, my opinion can be changed," she said. "What is your name?"

"I'm Odd," he said. "Odd Della Robbia. The guy who just left is Ulrich Stern. You're Kirsten, right?"

She raised an eyebrow, confused. "Do I know you?" she asked. "How do you know my name?"

Odd looked panicked for a moment. "Um...uh...I heard Principal Delmas mention that you would be coming the last time I was sent to his office," he said, quickly coming up with a story.

She shrugged and nodded. "Okay then. Do you know where room one-ninety-four is? It's my new dorm."

Odd grinned. "Of course! One of my friends has that room. It looks like you're roommates!"

"Oh," Kirsten said with a sigh. "Darn. I was hoping for a single room."

"Don't worry," Odd reassured her. "You two will be good friends in no time! She just moved here a couple months ago, so you two already have something in common!"

She smiled and let her new friend lead her towards the dorms.

_------------------------------ _

When Kirsten knocked on the door after Odd said goodbye, the girl inside opened it. Kirsten was about to introduce herself when she noticed the girl's vivid pink hair.

_Woah! That's a bright color to dye your hair,_ she thought. _What's with the weird hair here? First Odd's purple spot and giant spike, now this girl's pink hair. _

"Hello!" the girl said enthusiastically. "Welcome to Kadic, Kirsten!

"Huh?" Kirsten muttered, jerked out of her thoughts. "How did you know my name?"

The girl froze for a second. "I got a note from the Principal about you yesterday," she said after a moment's hesitation. "You're my new roommate, right? They already brought your stuff up. It's all on top of the other bed."

_How does everybody know my name?_ Kirsten asked herself. "Oh, okay," was all she said out loud. She walked in and rifled through her boxes quickly, pulling out a small locket and hanging it around her neck. Then she started opening boxes and unpacking her stuff.

_Two friends already,_ she thought as she unpacked. _Three if you include that "Ulrich" guy. Maybe this won't be so bad after all._

_------------------------------ _

Two days later, Kirsten wandered back to the dorm and flopped down on her bed breathing heavily.

"Who knew that overweight gym teacher had it in him?" she asked herself.

"What do you mean?" Aelita asked her as she entered the room.

Kirsten sat up and wiped her forehead. "Odd and I..." she started, only to pause and gasp. She pulled out a water bottle and took several gulps, then tried again.

"Odd and I played a joke on Jim," she said. "We poured liquid soap in front of the gym entrance, and he slipped and had a very spectacular fall. _I _thought it was funny, and so did Odd, but Jim didn't seem to take it too well. He chased us all the way into the forest until we hid in a tree."

Aelita laughed. "You've been here all of two days," she said, "and you're already playing practical jokes with Odd?"

Kirsten shrugged, a huge grin on her face now that her heart had slowed down to a normal speed. "It's what I do," she explained. "I've been a joker ever since I was in elementary school."

A door slammed and Jim's voice could be heard from downstairs. Kirsten swore several times in English and sprinted out the door, while Aelita laughed harder.

"Aelita? What are you laughing at?"

She stopped and opened her eyes to see Jim standing in the doorway.

"Um..." she muttered. "Nothing. Why?"

Jim just shook his head. "No reason," he muttered as Aelita tried to hold in her giggles. "Have you seen Kirsten or Odd lately?"

Aelita shook her head and Jim ran off. Only when he had left the hallway did she break out into laughter again.

After it got dark, Kirsten climbed in through the window. Aelita was working on homework when she heard the thump behind her. She tensed as she spun around and saw her roommate standing there.

"Um...Kirsten?" Aelita asked. "Why did you come through the window?"

Kirsten heaved a few deep breaths, leaning against the wall. "Jim...was waiting for me...by the doors..." she said between gasps.

"But this is the second floor," Aelita replied. She was worried. What if XANA had possessed her?

Kirsten gestured out the window and Aelita saw a rope hanging from the ledge.

"Oh," she said, impressed. "Well, I have to go to a friend's room. Do you want to come?

"Nah," her roommate replied. "I really have to start working on my homework. I can't believe I put it off until Sunday!"

Aelita nodded and left as Kirsten opened her backpack.

_------------------------------ _

Kirsten sat down and pulled out her Chemistry homework. She took one look at the reaction problems outlined on the page, and stuffed it back into her backpack, choosing instead to work on an English essay.

The brunette cursed in English again when the desk light went out. She was about to stand up and go look for a new light bulb, when she noticed smoke pouring out from the light.

She stood up and backed away, wondering what had happened to her light. Where had that smoke come from?

She was about to open her door and run when the smoke shot towards her and in her mouth. Then she fell to her knees and everything went black.

Her body stood up, but she was not the one controlling it. XANA had taken her body and her mind from her, leaving her unconscious.

She stood up and jogged towards Jeremie's dorm.

_------------------------------ _

"So, I was thinking we could go to sector five again tomorrow," Jeremie said to Aelita. They were both sitting in front of the computer in his dorm.

Aelita nodded. "Good idea," she said. "XANA shouldn't attack for a few more days at least."

The door flew open and slammed into the wall. Jeremie and Aelita both looked up to see Kirsten standing there.

"Who's that?" Jeremie asked.

"That's my new roommate, Kirsten Anderson," Aelita answered. "I told you that, right?"

Kirsten stepped forward and smirked. In less than a second, she had knocked Aelita unconscious, picked her up, and left. Jeremie slammed a fist on his desk, picked up his cell phone, and ran after the two girls, already calling Ulrich.

"A couple days," he muttered as he dialed. "A couple days, she said. I wish."

_------------------------------ _

"I love you, Ulrich," Yumi told her new boyfriend. They were sitting on a bench near the park, under one of the many lights illuminating the campus after dark. They were both still thinking about their first kiss. Sure, it never technically happened due to the XANA attack and return in time, but they still remembered it, and were still dating.

"I love you too, Yumi," Ulrich said with a smile. He leaned towards her and kissed her.

It was going to be a quick kiss, but Yumi put her hands on the back of Ulrich's head and held him there, about to deepen the kiss when Ulrich's phone rang. Ulrich pulled back and swore, muttering "every damn time!" as he answered it.

"Hello?" he asked the person on the other end of the call. "Jeremie? What...already? It's only been two days! Yeah, I know her. She's Aelita's roommate...fine, I'm on my way."

He hung up and turned to Yumi. "XANA possessed the new girl I told you about. She knocked out Aelita and is on the way to the factory."

Ulrich fished out a couple flashlights from his pocket and tossed one to Yumi. "I brought these in case we needed to find our way back to the dorms in the dark," he explained when he saw Yumi's quizzical expression.

Yumi nodded and switched on her flashlight as she ran into the forest, Ulrich hot on her heels.

_------------------------------ _

Odd was wandering through the pitch-black forest when he heard a twig snap behind him. He turned around and pressed a button on his cell phone to light up the screen, creating a very dim flashlight so he could see. He saw Kirsten run past, an unconscious Aelita under one arm.

"No way she's strong enough to carry Aelita," he muttered. "Damn it XANA! Give me a break!"

He sprinted after her, yelling until she turned around to look at him. One glance at her eyes confirmed his suspicions.

"XANA? Why don't you ever just give us a break?" he asked his possessed friend. "Seriously, you attack all the time. What's with your world domination thing anyway? Why can't you do something more constructive? You should take up knitting or something!"

Kirsten didn't reply. Instead, she leapt up into the air and spun, lashing out with a foot. Odd dodged the flying kick and tried to punch her, but it just went through her face and he stumbled, tripping over a root that was impossible to see in the dark and falling all the way through her body, landing flat on his face behind her.

She spun around and picked him up by the collar of his shirt with her left hand, dropping the unconscious Aelita on the ground. Her right hand clenched into a fist and started sparking. Small streaks of electricity leapt from finger to finger as she opened her hand and slammed her palm into Odd's chest.

Odd flew fifteen feet and landed by a tree. He tried to land on his feet, but he heard his ankle crack before collapsing to the ground in pain. He had fractured his ankle, maybe even cracked a couple ribs.

He stood up on his right foot and found a branch to use as a crutch. He pulled himself up and limped as fast as he could towards the factory, bolts of pain shooting through his ankle and chest.

_------------------------------ _

Ulrich and Yumi climbed out of the sewer just in time to see Kirsten run into the dark factory, Aelita tucked under her arm. They followed, swinging down on the ropes and running towards the elevator, but it was already going down. Ulrich leapt and landed on top of the elevator, then caught Yumi when she jumped. They tried to open the panel to get into the elevator, but it was sealed shut. The elevator stopped at the scanner level, so Ulrich climbed up the ladder for a few seconds until he reached the control room.

He turned around to pull Yumi up onto the ledge, then entered the code in the keypad to the side. The doors opened and he pulled her into the room just as the elevator started going up and the doors closed again.

Without saying a word, they ran over to a trap door in the metallic floor of the room and opened it, climbing down to the scanner level just in time to see two of the scanners close. Ulrich caught a glimpse of Kirsten's face as the doors closed. Aelita was obviously in the other scanner.

"Why is Kirsten in the scanner?" he asked himself.

"How do you know that girl's name?" Yumi asked.

"She's Aelita's new roommate," he explained. "You and Jeremie are the only ones who haven't met her yet. She arrived after dinner on Friday."

She nodded and pulled out her cell phone to call Jeremie.

_------------------------------ _

The genius in question was panting in the elevator as it went down. The doors opened and he ran towards the computer. "Scanners!" he shouted to Odd, who was waiting in the elevator. He was too worn out to use complete sentences.

The purple-clad boy nodded as the doors closed. When the doors reopened, he was at the scanner room. Yumi, about to dial Jeremie's number, put the phone back in her pocket.

"Ulrich? Yumi? You're already here?" Jeremie asked over the loudspeaker. He could see them on the security cameras.

"Yeah," Ulrich said. The microphone in the room picked up his voice and sent it to Jeremie's headset. "Aelita's already in Lyoko. The girl XANA possessed also got virtualized."

"Hmm...what is XANA up to?" Jeremie wondered out loud. "No matter. Get in the scanners you three. We need to hurry. I have no idea what XANA can do with one of his pawns in Lyoko."

Instead of answering, the three teens ran into the scanners.

_------------------------------ _

Aelita opened her eyes as her body went numb. She realized she was in Lyoko, and managed to barely land on her feet. She looked up to see somebody else virtualizing. The new person dropped to the ground, and Aelita gasped when she saw who it was.

Kirsten was standing in front of her, wearing black and red. She had a black tank-top with a red XANA symbol in the center of her chest. It ended just above her belly button, leaving an inch or two of skin between it and her black jeans. She had a silver belt with a red gem in the center and a silver earring with a red gem in her left ear. Black gloves covered her hands but left her arms bare, and black boots covered her feet and shins under the jeans. There was a naginata, a black five-foot pole with a slightly curved three-foot metallic blade on one end, attached to her back. Her pupils still showed XANA's symbol.

Aelita was about to scream and run, but XANA's pawn was too fast. She cut off the elfin girl, grabbing her arm to hold her still. With her other hand, she pointed in front of her, and something that looked like a hang glider with small jets on each side appeared. She grabbed on, made sure her hold on Aelita was secure, and flew off into the sky just as Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi dropped to the ground.

The vehicles materialized in front of them, and they flew off to follow Kirsten. They reached the edge of the sector just in time to see the transporter engulf the two and send them to Carthage.

_------------------------------ _

The moment the three Lyoko warriors arrived in Carthage, Odd collapsed to his knees, as usual, his hands holding his stomache.

"Feeling sick, Odd?"

Odd looked up and nodded. By the time the dome stopped spinning and a door opened, he was feeling better. They ran out the door, waited for the wall to open, then sprinted down the stairs, heading into the maw that was Carthage.

They reached the first room and saw Kirsten disappear through a doorway on the other side. Odd went after her, but Ulrich pulled him back as the panel he was about to step on disappeared, leaving a huge hole in the floor.

"Thanks buddy," Odd said. "I was almost dead meat there."

"No problem," Ulrich replied. "Supersprint!"

He disappeared in a flash of light and reappeared in the doorway on the other side. A straight line of panels between the doors fell into the void.

Odd smiled and climbed up onto the wall, which had enough protrusions and indentations for him to traverse the entire wall. He began to make his way towards the other side.

Yumi grabbed a part of the wall that was jutting out and flipped up on top of it. She ran to the end of the protrusion and leapt into the air, flipping before landing on one of the floor panels. By the time it fell, she had already jumped to grab another protrusion. She and Odd reached the other doorway at the same time, and followed Ulrich deeper into sector five.

_------------------------------ _

"Kirsten!" Aelita yelled. "Kirsten! Stop! I know you can hear me!"

"Kirsten can hear nothing," was the reply. It sounded like Kirsten's voice, but with a mechanical buzz. "I believe you humans call her current state unconsciousness."

Aelita closed her eyes, surprised. XANA almost never spoke through its possessions. _So,_ she decided, _that won't work._ She would have to try something else. She started to sing.

Kirsten reached out and covered her mouth with her free hand. Aelita's singing cut off and she cursed. XANA knew her strengths too well.

They reached the terminal outside of the sphere of sector five. Kirsten dropped Aelita and gestured towards her. Black ropes of energy appeared in the air and tied Aelita to the platform. Kirsten stepped over her and touched the screen at the edge of the platform.

_------------------------------ _

Ulrich was the first to reach the outside of Carthage, followed by Yumi and Odd. They saw Aelita tied to the platform with some kind of black rope, and Kirsten was walking over to her and kneeling. She pressed a hand to Aelita's forehead.

"Goodbye, you pesky little creature," she said with a mechanical voice. A black aura encased her hands as Aelita screamed in pain.

"SHE'S KILLING AELITA!!!" Jeremie yelled when he saw a window appear on his screen. His voice reverberated and echoed throughout Carthage, causing Kirsten to look up. Her XANA-shaped pupils met Odd's blue-purple eyes.

"KIRSTEN!!!" Odd yelled. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!! FIGHT IT!!!"

_------------------------------ _

Everything was dark. She felt like she was in an empty room with no windows or lights. She tried to stand and walk, but she was frozen in her kneeling position. She couldn't even move her head or her eyes.

Suddenly, two of her senses were flooded with input. She could suddenly see a gigantic blue sphere in front of her. She was kneeling next to Aelita. Ulrich, Odd, and some other girl she hadn't met were standing a few feet away. All four of them were wearing strange costumes.

She could suddenly hear at the same time. She heard some boy yell something about killing Aelita. Her head moved up and her eyes moved to meet Odd's eyes, but she hadn't moved anything at all.

"KIRSTEN!!!" he yelled. She would have jerked suddenly, but she couldn't move. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!! FIGHT IT!!!"

She wanted to say that she was right there, but she couldn't move. Her mouth remained closed. Her head moved back down so she was looking at Aelita. Kirsten looked at her hands and saw a black aura covering them as they rested on Aelita's forehead. It was the same aura that held Aelita down to the floor.

_No...what's happening to me?_ she wondered. _Why can't I move?_

**_You're awake. Why? _**

Her inner self tensed at the words. She saw black smoke in her mind, forming the shape of a person. It was the same black smoke that had come out of her lamp.

_**Correct. Now answer my question. Why are you awake?** _

_I don't know. You can hear my thoughts? _

_**Yes. How do you not know? It is a part of you.** _

_I don't know everything about myself. _

_**Impossible. You must know yourself. But if you will not tell me, I will have to find out for myself.** _

_Oh yeah? Well, what are you? _

_**I am me. I am the ruler of this world, and of all worlds connected to it. All but one. That world is your world.** _

_Other worlds? _

**_Yes. This world of Lyoko, as well as other large worlds like Google and Yahoo. _**

Kirsten's inner self started laughing. _Oh, I see what you are. You are a virus. _

**_I am merely me. Now I will find out what _you_ are._**

Kirsten screamed in her mind, as she couldn't scream with her own mouth. It felt like a spike was being driven into her skull. It hurt so much she couldn't even think. She could still see though. She saw Odd approaching her slowly. She saw one of her hands raise up and hit him with a bolt of black energy. She saw him fly back and crash into the other two.

_You're hurting my friends!_ she yelled in her mind.

**_Friends? I see no meaning in that word._**

_You'll pay for this._

With that thought, she looked around her prison, seeing the black smoke that she was now intimately familiar with surrounding her, cutting her mind off from the rest of her body. She searched carefully, probing the dark barrier, careful to conceal her thoughts as well as she could. If she could just find a way out...

Suddenly, the virus, which she somehow knew was called XANA, raised her arm and shot Odd again. His body lost its texture, turning into a wireframe which quickly disappeared.

_YOU KILLED HIM!!!_ she screamed in her mind. That was the last straw.

She gathered her energy and threw herself at the barrier, but it didn't budge. She continued battering it to no avail. Eventually, her mind was exhausted, and she could barely muster up enough energy for one strike.

Suddenly she noticed a small hole in the barrier. It must have been how she was able to see and hear what was happening around her. She gathered up the rest of her energy, prepared to throw it all into this last strike.

"Aelita's almost dead!" a voice shouted. That was when Kirsten got pissed off. XANA had killed her first friend, and now it was going to kill her roommate? Not if she could help it!

She threw herself at the hole in the barrier. It widened enough to allow her through. Immediately she regained control of her body and stood up.

_------------------------------ _

The others all gasped as Kirsten groaned, still in that mechanical voice, and grasped her head. Suddenly, there was a flash of light. When he could see again, her costume had changed. It was a deep blue now, instead of black, and had a white image of the moon on her chest instead of the XANA symbol. The gems in her belt and earring turned blue as well, and her gloves and boots turned white. The naginata on her back now had a pale wooden handle. She stood up.

"Kirsten?" Aelita asked from the ground. Kirsten smiled.

"Yeah," she said. "Can somebody tell me what the hell happened to me? What's going on? Where are we? Who's this other girl?"

Then she remembered what she had done. "Oh my god, Odd," she whispered.

"Don't worry Kirsten," Aelita said. "You didn't kill him. He's perfectly fine. He's just not here."

"Of course I'm fine!" Odd yelled from nowhere. Kirsten whirled around, but didn't see them.

"Odd?" Kirsten asked. "Where are you?"

"You can't see me, but I'm talking through a headset. I'm perfectly fine. In fact—"

"Jeremie," the unknown Japanese girl interrupted, "now would be a good time to return to the past. We probably already missed one of Jim's dorm checks, and we don't want this...Kirsten...to remember anything."

"Of course. The tower was deactivated when Kirsten fought off the possession. Return to the past now!" another voice said.

"What?" Kirsten asked. "What's happening?"

A white light came from nowhere and consumed the world before a single one of her many questions was answered. She thought she heard somebody say something about remembering something, then everything went black.

_------------------------------ _

"Hi Kirsten," Aelita said when she heard a thump behind her.

"Hi Ae—" Kirsten said, before cutting off. She looked around. "What happened?"

Aelita spun around, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I...I don't know..." Kirsten said. "I thought I already did this. Then you left and went to somebody's room, and then something happened, and then I was in some strange world and you were..." she trailed off, a sheepish grin appearing on her face. "I sound ridiculous, don't I? It must have been a dream."

Aelita nodded. "Yeah. I have to ask a friend of mine something. I'll be right back." She stood up and left hurriedly, leaving a confused Kirsten behind her.

_------------------------------ _

_There you go, my longest chapter ever (again). This one's over 4,000 words! If I continue with this trend, the last chapter will probably be as long as the entire original Code : Changes! Anyway, with this chapter, Code:Changes Reloaded is already over 10,000 words long. One more good chapter, and it'll be longer than the original. _

_So, tell me what you think about this plot twist! I'll start working on the next chapter ASAP! _

_PLEASE REVIEW!!! Come on, it's not that hard. Just click the button on the lower left of the page, and type your thoughts about my story. Seriously, it doesn't take too much effort, right?_


	4. A Change of Feelings

_Well, here's the next chapter! I was going to post it earlier, but I haven't had the time. I'm already busy with school, even though we just started a new semester. But I'm sure you don't really care as much about my personal life as you do about this story! So, without further adeu, here's chapter four!_

_Wait, almost forgot (again). I don't own Code Lyoko. I don't know how many times I've said this, but the stupid rules say I have to keep saying it, so whatever. Go read the chapter now!_

------------------------------

_Chapter 4 – A Change of Feelings_

------------------------------

Jeremie slapped his forehead as he sat at his computer in his dorm. How could he have been so _stupid_? He had forgotten something really important!

In order for Kirsten to have been virtualized, her profile had been created on the supercomputer. Because she had a profile, the return to the past didn't affect her! And Jeremie had completely forgotten until now!

"And I call myself a genius," he muttered. "How did I miss that?"

There was a furious knock on his door. He would have recognized that knock anywhere. It was definitely Aelita. He stood up and walked towards the door, refusing to believe that the fact that he knew it was Aelita was a little creepy. He had called Odd a creepy genius once, and now he was beginning to deserve the nickname too! How many people recognize a visitor by their knock?

He opened the door and sure enough, Aelita was leaning against the frame, wheezing. It seemed as if she had run all the way from her dorm, which, in fact, she had. Jeremie grabbed her sleeve and tugged her gently into the room, shutting the door. It was still dark, and Jim was probably going to do rounds soon. Aelita sat on his bed and caught her breath.

"She remembers," Aelita said as her breathing slowed to a normal rate. "Kirsten remembers everything."

Jeremie nodded. "I thought so. I realized after the return to the past that she would probably remember," he explained. "After all, she was virtualized into Lyoko, so it's only logical that she would no longer be affected by the time reversion. I just wish I had figured it out earlier."

"What will we do?" Aelita asked. "We can remove her profile from the supercomputer, right? Then we'll just tell her that it was a dream, and she won't remember any of the future trips."

Jeremie grinned. "Exactly," he said. "I have to do it on the supercomputer itself though, and it's too late to go to the factory tonight. We don't have time to get there and back before Jim does his lights-out check. We probably won't be able to get away tomorrow either, because Jim is always extra-vigilant on Mondays."

"Tuesday then," she said. "We'll delete her profile on Tuesday after school. It'll be Kirsten's first full day, right? She can meet you and Yumi properly at lunch."

"Of course," he said.

Aelita smiled as she hugged him. She moved back slightly and planted a short kiss on his lips. She pulled back and whispered "I love you," into his ear. By the time Jeremie could say anything besides "uh...um...uh," she was gone.

------------------------------

"This is Jeremie. He's my...good friend," Aelita explained to Kirsten as they sat at the lunch table. "He's in our science class, but he was too busy working on our assignment to notice you on Saturday."

They shook hands. "It's a bit late," Jeremie said, "since you've already been here for two days, but welcome to Kadic!"

"Thanks," Kirsten said. "I'm...happy...to be here...I guess." She fiddled with the locket hanging around her neck. Not for the first time, Aelita wondered what the locket was all about. It was obviously something her roommate treasured a lot, and possibly had something to do with her moving. It had been the first thing she pulled out from her boxes the day she arrived. Still, Aelita knew that it was a sensitive subject.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when Yumi arrived. She smiled and walked over to them. Her smile widened when she saw Ulrich, but slipped slightly when she saw Kirsten.

"Um...hi," she muttered. Kirsten, having dealt with slightly antisocial people like Yumi back in California, was unfazed.

"Hi. I'm Kirsten Anderson," she said. "You're Yumi, right? Aelita told me a lot about you."

Yumi just nodded. "Yeah. Aelita told me a bit about you too. You're from the United States, right?"

Kirsten nodded. "Yes. I lived on the West Coast, in California."

"Your French is good," Yumi commented. "You even have a Parisian accent."

"Thanks!" Kirsten said. "I had a...friend...who used to live in Paris, and he taught me French."

_Had?_ Aelita wondered. _Is he not her friend any more?_

Once again, she knew it was better not to ask.

------------------------------

"Is she always that cold?" Kirsten asked Aelita in Science class. "I think she only talked to me because you guys forced her to."

"Once you get to know her, she's a great friend," Aelita explained. "She's a little shy, so she isn't very nice to people she doesn't know well. Don't worry, she'll warm up to you soon."

"You know, Aelita," Kirsten said. "I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed that I was somehow possessed, and I kidnapped you or something...that part's a bit hazy though. All I remember is being outside of this weird blue sphere, and everything looked like it was from a videogame or something. You and the others were wearing weird costumes and stuff."

Aelita wouldn't have succeeded in holding back a gasp if Kirsten hadn't already explained part of her dream to her last night when she came through the window after the return to the past.

"You looked like an elf, Ulrich was dressed as a samurai, and even though I didn't know her yet, Yumi was there too. She looked like a geisha or something," Kirsten explained, not knowing that Aelita knew exactly what she was talking about. She laughed. "Odd had paws and a tail! All he needed were the pointed ears, and he would have been a neko!"

"Neko?" Aelita asked. "What's that?"

"A cat-person," Kirsten explained. "Basically, a person with catlike features, like a tail, paws, ears, that sort of thing."

Aelita nodded, and their attention turned to the two boys in front of them. Ulrich was staring out the window, and Odd was waving his hand in front of his friend's face, but to no avail. Ulrich continued to space out. Kirsten and Aelita started snickering quietly. Mrs. Hertz, the science teacher, was starting to lose her hearing, but she could still hear the two youngsters interrupting her lecture in the back of the room.

"Miss Stones! Miss Anderson!" she exclaimed, drawing the attention of both girls back to her. "Would you care to tell the class just what is so funny?"

"No ma'am, I'd rather not," Kirsten explained. She put on her "innocent student" face. "Rest assured that our amusement is not at your expense."

Mrs. Hertz rolled her eyes. "Of course. I would send you to the Principal's Office, but since this is really only your second day of class at this school, I'll let you off with a warning," she said as Kirsten sighed with relief. "Aelita, since you're such a model student, the same goes for you. If either of you see fit to disrupt my class again, I will send you both to the principal's office."

The two girls nodded and sat back down. They nearly started laughing again when they noticed that Ulrich's position hadn't changed. Odd had started jabbing him in the side, but he was getting no response.

Finally, Ulrich's eye twitched with annoyance. The next time he was jabbed, he grabbed the offending hand, holding tightly. The owner of the hand let out a small "eep!"

"Daydreaming again, Romeo?" Aelita asked, in an unusually sarcastic tone. "You'll see your Juliet after school, don't worry."

Odd grinned. "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" he shouted in a high falsetto. "Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet."

Mrs. Hertz and the whispering students were stunned into silence, so he took it as a compliment and continued. "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague," he announced, still in that high voice. The rest of the class was torn between not believing that he was actually doing that, and not believing that he actually knew the lines. Ulrich snapped out of his daydream and immediately knew that Odd was mocking him.

"What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself."

He bowed and the entire class broke out laughing and clapping, even Ulrich. Odd stood up and walked down the aisle towards the front of the room as everybody fell silent. He tipped an imaginary hat to Mrs. Hertz. "Don't bother sending me to the Principal's Office, I think I'll just go on my own," he said as he walked out the door. The moment he was gone, everybody started laughing again.

Ulrich, however, fell silent, once again daydreaming about Yumi.

------------------------------

"You dope!" Kirsten half-shouted at Odd the next day after school while trying not to break out laughing again. "What was that outburst anyway?"

Odd shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "Aelita mentioned Romeo and Juliet, and I decided that it was the perfect time to be sent to the Principal's office again. I memorized the lines when I tried out for the play a month ago. I didn't make the part though."

The two of them were walking down the hall towards the cafeteria for dinner. The school was abuzz, the rumor of Odd's outburst already running rampant, even though it had only happened yesterday.

"No," Kirsten said. "I'd imagine that they would have preferred a female for the part of Juliet."

Odd jabbed her forehead with a finger. "I didn't try out for Juliet," he tried to explain. "I just memorized her lines so I knew when to speak! I tried out for Romeo!"

Kirsten nodded. "Sure...I believe you," she said, her voice clearly implying that she didn't. She laughed at the wounded look on her friend's face. "I've only known you for a couple days, yet I feel like I've been friends with you guys for years!" she exclaimed suddenly.

Odd grinned. "Yeah, we really hit it off," he said. His bluish-purple eyes met her hazel ones for a long moment. The moment seemed to stretch into eternity before they both blushed and turned away.

"So, um, where are you from, Odd?" Kirsten asked, ducking slightly to keep him from seeing her beet-red face. "I mean, I told you all about me, but I know nothing about you!"

"Well, I was born in Norway," he said. "I lived in the United States for a while, in California, actually, just like you. I lived near San Diego. You were closer to San Francisco, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she answered. "I was actually born in Pennsylvania, but we moved to California when I was five. Then I lived there until a few days ago, when I was sent here. My mom is living in another town nearby, but she decided to just have me board here instead of driving every day."

"What about your dad?" Odd asked. Kirsten's face fell and he cursed himself. He had obviously brought up a delicate topic. She stayed silent long enough for him to speak up again. "If you don't want to talk about it," he started to say.

"No, it's okay," she replied. She took a deep breath. "He...he died in a car accident last year," she said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. Odd barely heard her. "He died in the same accident that killed...him."

"Who?" Odd asked.

"My...my boyfriend," she said. "We had a fight just hours before, and I was going to go apologize to him. I was walking to his house when I saw the accident." She stopped to sniff, tears already threatening to fall. "My dad had been driving him home, because he lived far away and he was headed that direction anyway, and a drunk driver hit them. Dad was dead instantly. My boyfriend..." she trailed off again and took another breath, continuing in a shaky voice. "He was stuck in the hospital for a week. There was no hope for him anyway, but it took him a whole week to die."

A tear fell from the corner of her eye. Odd put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close. She collapsed into his chest and began to cry in earnest. As she did, she wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. Odd just shifted her to the side and led her a short way into the forest for some privacy.

They sat down on a fallen log, Kirsten still crying into Odd's shirt. She undid a chain that held a locket around her neck and opened it. It revealed a picture of a boy with spiked brown hair and brown eyes. He was smiling, and holding a slightly younger Kirsten close.

Her crying got worse, and Odd took the locket so her hands were free to wrap around his torso again. He looked at the picture. The happy couple looked a bit younger, probably thirteen. Odd and Ulrich were both fourteen now, as was Kirsten. Yumi was, of course, a year older, and Jeremie and Aelita were still thirteen, though both of their birthdays were coming up.

His cell phone rang and he cursed in English as he picked it up from his pocket.

"I didn't know you spoke English!" Kirsten exclaimed, also in English. She had stopped crying for now. "Unless you just know curse words..." she added in French.

"I lived in California," Odd replied, again in English, before putting the phone to his ear. "It's hard to get around there without knowing English."

Kirsten slapped her forehead. Of course! Of course he would know the language, having lived in California for so long!

"Jeremie? Why are you calling?" he answered, switching back to French. "Are you...Oh no...Really? Damn it...Well, I'm kind of in the middle of something...Fine! I'm on my way!" His voice had grown louder throughout the conversation, until he had nearly yelled the last part.

He slipped the phone into his pocket and turned to the girl in front of him. "Sorry, Kirsten. Jeremie called an _important meeting_ and we all have to be there," he told her gently. "I'll be seeing you, I suppose."

He leaned towards her until their faces were inches apart, then appeared to change his mind as he turned around. He ran off, sparing one last glance at Kirsten, who was glaring at him.

_I'm gonna regret this in the near future,_ he thought.

------------------------------

Kirsten sighed as she watched Odd run off. He was always leaving her behind to do stuff with his friends. She wasn't exactly really part of the group yet, and she felt that the blond kid with the glasses and that Japanese girl still disliked her.

"Jeremie and Yumi," she muttered aloud. "Their names are Jeremie and Yumi."

Suddenly, she realized something. It was something she should have known a long time ago. Her friends were still wary of letting her in, and she had to fix that.

"I have to do this myself," she told herself. "I have to worm my way in to the group, or I'll be excluded forever."

With that, she stood and ran after Odd.

------------------------------

"So, I called this meeting to ask you something," Jeremie said. "What are we going to do?"

Odd rolled his eyes. "Well, I was thinking I could go back and make sure Kirsten's alright," he replied, sarcasm dripping from every word. "I did kind of leave her in a fit of crying..."

"Why did you do that?" Jeremie asked, surprised. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"You said, and I quote: 'I don't care what's going on! Don't explain, just come!' So, I did what you said and just came," Odd explained.

"Never mind that," Ulrich interrupted before a serious argument could break out. "Jeremie, exactly why are we going to do something?"

"Kirsten is remembering the XANA attacks," Jeremie elaborated. "I tried to delete her profile yesterday, but it's protected somehow. I can't get rid of it. So, she'll keep remembering. What should we do?"

Before anybody could answer, his computer started beeping. Everybody groaned, as that was the unmistakable sign of yet another XANA attack.

------------------------------

Kirsten listened at the door, suspicious when she heard them talking about her remembering attacks by some guy called XANA.

"You know what that means," she heard Jeremie grumble. "We're off to the factory."

Kirsten swore under her breath and ran around the corner to her dorm. She closed the door just as the group came down the hall. She waited in her room, staring out the window, until she was sure they were gone. She was about to leave again when she noticed Ulrich run into the forest, everybody else soon following. Curious, she went outside and followed them.

She was about to enter the forest when there was a sound of crackling electricity behind her. She turned and saw some kid standing behind her. His name was...William, she believed. There were sparks traveling around his left hand, which was held up in her direction.

She ducked just as a bolt of electricity traveled through the space her head had occupied moments before. "What the hell are you doing?" she shouted. Her answer was another bolt of electricity.

Instead of asking him again, she decided to just run. She sprinted into the forest, looking for a place to hide. She happened upon a manhole cover.

"Perfect," she said as she lifted the cover and climbed down the ladder. She reached the bottom and ran down the sewer.

------------------------------

"Virtualization!"

Aelita appeared in the forest sector of Lyoko and dropped to the ground next to Yumi. Ulrich and Odd were standing a few feet away.

"Your vehicles are ready," Jeremie said. As he said that, their vehicles appeared in front of them. They hopped on.

------------------------------

Kirsten heard a thud behind her and continued to run, randomly taking turns at various intersections, and probably unintentionally doubling back every once in a while. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that she wouldn't be able to find her way back if she ever escaped.

But that was definitely not the first thing on her mind, especially not when William appeared in front of her and pressed his hand to her forehead, holding her down on the floor with his other hand. Black smoke traveled from his hand to her forehead, and she screamed as pain exploded in her head.

She took out her cell phone and gasped as she hit a random speed-dial key.

------------------------------

"Just two crabs left!" Jeremie said. "I'm surprised, we haven't seen XANA's attack yet."

Then he heard a ringing noise nearby. He looked around and discovered Odd's phone on the console. He had dropped it by accident when they had reached the factory. He picked it up and answered it.

"Hello?"

There was a scream from the other end of the line, then Kirsten's voice came through, sounding very weak. "Jeremie? I thought this was Odd's phone!" She screamed again. "Never mind! I need help! That William kid is trying to kill me!"

There was another scream, then the phone went dead.

Jeremie swore and put his headset back on.

"I've officially just eaten my words," he said. "William's been possessed and he's attacking Kirsten." He glanced at another monitor and groaned. "And apparently we have to return to the past. William caused a lot of havoc before he went after her."

He was watching a news report that showed a burning building near Kadic. Then it showed a video clip of William chasing Kirsten into the forest. The reporter said it had been taken by a student in Video Production class out of a second-story window.

"Hurry up!" he said.

------------------------------

"We're going as fast as we can!" Ulrich shouted as he dodged a laser. "Triplicate!"

He split into three, and all three of him went after one of the crabs. It managed to get two of them, but he still destroyed it. All three of the vehicles had been devirtualized a while ago.

Aelita was slowly sneaking from tree to tree as Yumi and Odd distracted the other crab. Ulrich joined them. Aelita managed to make her way to the tower. The crab noticed her, but was only able to hit her once before she went inside. Then it was devirtualized by a well-placed laser-arrow courtesy of Odd.

------------------------------

Kirsten felt something force its way into her mind. She screamed and kicked, trying to force it out, but to no avail. A XANA symbol slowly faded into view on her forehead, and her pupils stretched and contorted into the same shape. Just before she would have lost consciousness, she noticed a white light heading her way.

"What the..." was all she was able to say before the light swept her up into the past.

------------------------------

_Well, there's another chapter finished! I hope to start working on chapter five soon. __You know, I can hardly call this a rewrite any more. I've deviated so far from the original plot that it's basically its own story! Still, I plan to have all the major plot points from the original in this one, so it'll seem more like a rewrite in the coming chapters. __I added more backstory to deepen Kirsten's character a bit. I hope you liked it!_

_Anyway, read and review! Why I'm saying "read," I don't know, because you probably already read it, but whatever..._

_Wow, with this chapter, Code:Changes Reloaded is officially longer than the original! And I have only written four chapters!_


	5. A Change of Members

_Well, here's the next chapter. I don't own Code Lyoko, nor do I own anything from the show. I just own Kirsten, her Lyoko outfit, the plot of this story, and various things like that. _

_Anyway, I would really like it if you REVIEWED at the end of this chapter. PLEASE!!! Seriously, I can see exactly how many people are reading without reviewing on my stats page, and it's really bothering me. Even if you just say "good job, update soon" or something, I don't care. I just want a review! _

_Anyway, on to the chapter!!! This one's definitely a pivotal chapter, so go read it!!! _

------------------------------

_Chapter 5 – A Change of Members _

------------------------------

Kirsten found herself in the forest again, sitting on the same fallen log, her tears soaking Odd's shirt. She gasped and wiped the tears from her eyes. When her eyes were dry, she turned her gaze to Odd.

"What the..." she muttered. As she looked into Odd's face, she could tell that he knew something. She jabbed her index finger into his forehead.

"Okay, Odd," she said, anger obvious in her voice. "I know that you know exactly what's happening, and I want to know now!" She sniffed again as a sobering thought surfaced. "I'm going crazy!" she screamed suddenly. "I'm hallucinating! I keep seeing the future! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?!?!"

"Calm down!" Odd said loud enough to get her attention. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if we can tell you everything. I have to call the others. Either way, you're not hallucinating or seeing the future or anything. Don't worry."

He pulled out his cell phone and was about to dial Jeremie's number when it rang. Ironically enough, Jeremie was the caller.

"She remembered, didn't she?" Jeremie asked. "She remembered the XANA attack."

"Yeah, she did," Odd replied. "We need to tell her everything! She thinks she's going crazy! If we don't tell her, she probably will!"

"Calm down," the computer nerd replied. "I'll call the others for a quick meeting in my dorm. Come right now and try to get Kirsten to stay in her dorm or something."

"Aye, Captain," the joker replied. He hung up before Jeremie could tell him off.

"Kirsten," Odd said after he turned back to face her, "I need you to wait in your dorm for a little bit. I'll come get you soon. I have to talk about something secret with the others."

"Okay," she answered. Odd raised an eyebrow, surprised that she was so agreeable.

He had a right to be suspicious. She had every intention of spying on the gang during their "secret meeting."

------------------------------

Kirsten crept up to Jeremie's dorm and pressed her ear to the door. She could barely make out what they were saying, because they were all speaking quietly. Still, she leaned against the door and eventually caught the conversation.

"Wait," Ulrich said, "you can't delete her profile?"

"Nope," Jeremie replied. "It's protected or something. I haven't been able to access it. I might be able to find a way to get rid of it, but until then, she'll remember everything."

_I'll remember what?_ she asked herself. _What's the big secret?_

"So, let me get this straight," Yumi said. "When she was possessed by XANA and took Aelita to Lyoko, her profile was created on the supercomputer. XANA did something to it, so you can't delete it, and as long as she has a profile, she'll remember the attacks. Right?"

"Yes," Jeremie replied.

Kirsten heard two unknown words during that part of the conversation: XANA and Lyoko. Lyoko sounded like some sort of place, from what they said. Maybe it was that place she went to in one of her dreams! As for XANA, that must have been that thing that possessed her!

"We have two options," Aelita said. "Either we tell her nothing, and she continues to think she is completely nuts, or we tell her everything, and make her a part of the team. What do you think?"

"Why don't we vote?" Odd asked.

Kirsten shifted, but froze as her shoe squeaked on the floor of the hallway. She heard footsteps in the room, so she ran back to her room and quietly closed the door. She'd heard enough, so she decided to just wait it out and see what happened.

------------------------------

"I vote for," Aelita said immediately. Jeremie looked at him and sighed.

"Against," the genius said. "We can't trust anybody with this."

"For," Odd said. "We may not be able to trust her, but we can't leave her thinking she's crazy!"

"Against," Yumi said. "Jeremie's right. We can't just go telling everybody."

"Since when is one person everybody?" Odd asked. Yumi didn't answer, instead looking at Ulrich.

"Why is it always _me_?" Ulrich complained with a groan. "I don't know! We can't trust her yet, but she'll go insane if she keeps remembering! I don't know!!!"

"Calm down Ulrich," Jeremie said. "If you can't decide, we'll find another way to vote."

Ulrich shook his head. "No," he said. "I've decided."

------------------------------

When Kirsten got bored waiting, she pulled out her diary and began writing about what had happened lately. When she finished, she put it away. She was bored again within seconds, so she opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a sketchbook and pencil starting to draw. She sketched out a picture of Aelita, but as the elfin girl that she had been in Kirsten's dream, or whatever it had been. When she was done, she added Ulrich the samurai and Yumi the geisha standing next to each other a little ways from Aelita, and Odd the cat standing off on the other side, grinning as usual.

After staring at the picture for a moment, she realized that something was missing. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something that should be in the picture that wasn't. She started sketching randomly, and eventually ended up with a picture of herself standing right next to Odd, also dressed differently. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing a tank-top with a crescent moon on it, and jeans. She had a silver belt with a large blue sapphire on the buckle, and a small silver earring with a little sapphire on it as well. She also had gloves and boots on. There was a naginata attached to her back.

It was the same outfit she had worn in her dream, she realized. When she finished, she started drawing the background, having found that she could vividly remember it. When she finished that, she went over the lines with a darker pencil and pulled out a set of colored pencils. Before she started coloring, there was a knock on her door.

She hid the sketchbook back in a drawer and went to answer it. Aelita was standing there.

"You know, it's _your _dorm too, Aelita," Kirsten said. "You can come in if you want."

"Maybe," her roommate replied, "but you might have been doing something private that you didn't want me to see."

The brunette grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, actually, I was," she said. "I was working on a drawing. I'll show you when I'm done. So, why are you here?"

"To take you over to talk to the others," Aelita replied. "Come on."

Kirsten shrugged and left the room with the pink-haired girl.

------------------------------

Odd stood up when Kirsten entered the room and smiled. He walked over to her and shook her hand.

"Welcome to the gang, Kirsten," he said. She looked at him, confused.

"The gang?" she asked. "Okay, is this some sort of secret club or something?"

"Something like that," Jeremie said. "Odd? You and Aelita know her best. I have to talk to Aelita about something, so you explain as much as you can. We'll take her to Lyoko tomorrow."

Odd nodded and led her out the dorm. Ulrich and Yumi followed, leaving just Jeremie and Aelita alone in the room. Aelita smiled at Jeremie.

"So?" she asked. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Um…" Jeremie muttered. "I want to talk about…us…"

"About what I said before?" Aelita asked.

Jeremie nodded. "Yes," he mumbled quietly. "What you said...did you mean it?"

"With all my heart," the girl admitted. "I am absolutely in love with you. I had Yumi explain love to me, and I feel the same way about you that she feels about Ulrich."

Jeremie smiled shakily and stood up. He planted a quick kiss on her lips, taking the initiative for once. They broke apart quickly, both blushing, and Jeremie smiled.

"I feel the same way," he whispered.

Aelita grinned and pulled his head closer for a longer kiss.

------------------------------

"So, Odd, what exactly are you supposed to explain?" Kirsten asked. Odd just sighed.

"Well, first you have to promise you'll at least _try_ to believe what I'm telling you," he said. "It'll sound pretty crazy, but I'll be able to prove it to you tomorrow. Do you promise?"

Kirsten shrugged. "Sure, whatever," she agreed, sounding like she wasn't really taking him seriously. "I'm pretty open-minded. Plus, anything that proves I'm not going insane is good."

Odd took a deep breath. "Well, the first thing you have to know is that your dreams or visions or whatever actually happened," he said. "You were really possessed, and that William kid was possessed too. You can tell when you look into the eyes, a symbol appears there. Anyway, there's this supercomputer in an abandoned factory. There's a virtual world inside the supercomputer. You were there in your first "dream." Anyway..."

He continued to explain everything about Lyoko, XANA, and the attacks. He said that XANA was a virus that could use towers in Lyoko to possess objects or people. They didn't know what the virus wanted to do, but they knew that it wanted the gang out of its way.

"So, how do you fight this...XANA?" she asked.

Odd slapped his forehead. "There you go! I just skipped the whole point!" he exclaimed. "So, we get into these giant scanners in the factory and get sent to Lyoko to fight off the monsters that XANA puts there. We have to guard Aelita and keep her from being sent back to Earth, and bring her to a tower, so she can deactivate it. Then, if the attack is bad enough, we go back in time so it never happened..."

"You mentioned that you can use your powers on Earth," Kirsten said after Odd trailed off. "How?"

"Well, Jeremie said something about XANA attacking and trying to delete our DNA code while we were on Lyoko. If XANA had succeeded, we probably would have died for real instead of going back to earth when running out of life points," Odd explained as well as he could. "Somehow, the supercomputer took the DNA for our Lyoko selves and filled in the missing pieces that had been deleted. One of those pieces lets us use our powers."

And so they continued strolling around the campus for a few more hours. Odd explained everything he could think of, while Kirsten occasionally asked a couple questions to get the rest of the story.

She went to bed that night with a full mind. Most of it was taken up by Odd's explanations. She was also feeling apprehensive. She was going to Lyoko tomorrow.

What would the virtual world have in store for her?

------------------------------

Odd sat up in bed, wide awake. Ulrich had fallen asleep long ago, but Odd wasn't able to sleep, as usual. He always slept late and in class because he never fell asleep on time at night. He was practically becoming a borderline insomniac.

This night in particular was especially hard on him. The day after tomorrow was the fifth anniversary of the day his life changed forever. His world had shattered, and his old life had ended. People believed that he was just a joker, somebody with a twisted sense of humor. In reality, that humor was covering up an emptiness and loneliness that no amount of friends could fill.

During the day, his mask never slipped. He used his great sense of humor to keep himself sane. He went on with life as usual for him. Sure, he made lots of enemies with his pranks, but he didn't care.

At night though, the mask came off. Odd revealed, to everybody who could see him, who he really was. As his dorm usually consisted of himself, a sleeping Kiwi, and a sleeping Ulrich, nobody ever saw him without the mask. It was always on again by the time morning came.

He drew his knees up to his chest and let a few tears fall from his eyes. Then he thought of Kirsten, and her inner pain. Misery loves company, and this was no exception. He began to feel better immediately as he thought of the girl.

_What is this feeling?_ he asked himself just before he fell asleep. The thought had surfaced while he was already half-asleep, so it was already forgotten the next morning, when he put his mask back on and showed his false face to the world.

------------------------------

Kirsten sniffed as her tears finally stopped falling. She sat up to give her damp pillow time to dry, and reflected on the past several days. For some strange reason, she had told Odd about her past, about her sadness. He had been very mature about it for once, just holding her while she was crying, and helping her through it.

He was so similar to Adam, her old boyfriend. It was scary, thinking that he was like the boy who had been ripped away from her. She didn't want to lose anybody else.

"Don't let me lose you," she whispered, careful not to wake up Aelita. "Not again."

Just thinking of Odd made her smile. It was hard not to. The boy was so carefree and funny that it rubbed off on everybody nearby, especially her. Despite her sadness and pain, Odd always cheered her up and brought out her better side. She no longer had trouble hiding the pain away, not when she was with him.

_What is this feeling?_ she asked herself, not knowing that her thoughts were echoing Odd's. Still wondering, she fell into a deep sleep.

------------------------------

The next morning, Kirsten was woken by Aelita. She rubbed her eyes and blinked slowly, gradually sitting up to look at Aelita.

"G'mrnin," she muttered. Aelita laughed.

"Still tired?" she asked. Kirsten just nodded and slowly swung her legs off her bed. She grabbed her robe and stumbled out the door towards the showers.

She reached the showers, went inside, and immediately turned on some cold water. She took a deep breath and stood under it. The intense cold woke her up immediately, and she turned it hotter as fast as she could.

When she was done with her shower, she made her way back to her dorm and got dressed. Aelita was waiting. She had already taken her shower and gotten ready for the day.

"So, today's the big day, huh?" She asked Aelita as they left the dorm. Aelita turned around and locked the door, then looked at Kirsten.

"Yes. We're bringing you to Lyoko today after school," Aelita answered. "Can you wait that long?"

Kirsten yawned. "Maybe," she answered. "But I might take a leaf from Odd's book and sleep during class today, or I'll fall asleep before we even _get_ to Lyoko! As you can tell, I'm not much of a morning person." The pink-haired girl chuckled.

"Okay then. Anyway, let's hurry up and go get breakfast!

------------------------------

"Well, I made another paper crane today," Odd said. "It was fun and all, but my grades are suffering because of it."

Kirsten laughed. She had turned in her English essay and come back to see Odd folding a paper crane from the paper with the essay prompt on it. When he had handed it to Mrs. Wooding, the math teacher, she had seemed unfazed, just shaking her head as she took it and placed it on top of the pile of tests.

"Maybe if you found something more constructive to do with the test," Kirsten pointed out, "your grades would improve. Maybe you should try taking it next time."

"Well, I'll either not try at all and get a zero, or try really hard and get a five," Odd said. "It's not really worth the effort, since I'll fail anyway."

"Anyway," Kirsten said, "we're going to Lyoko today, right?"

Odd nodded. "Yeah."

"Let's go find the others then."

They split up to gather Ulrich, Yumi, Jeremie, and Aelita up from wherever they were.

------------------------------

Kirsten had looked in her own dorm, but Aelita wasn't there. There was only one other place she would be. So, she walked up to Jeremie's door and knocked. She heard something shuffle around inside, then Jeremie called "Come in!"

She opened the door and saw Jeremie working on the computer. Aelita looked like she was doing her homework. Both had bright red faces. Kirsten tried to hold in a laugh.

"I'm going to Lyoko today, remember?" she asked. "That is, unless you two were busy..."

_Success!_ she shouts inwardly when their faces grew redder. "No," Jeremie said. "We...uh...I was working on a program...Aelita was just doing some homework."

"I..." Aelita began, stuttering. "I can do it later...right Jeremie?"

He smiled. "Of course," he explained. "We...I mean...you can do it later."

Kirsten grinned and ran off to see if Odd had found Ulrich and Yumi yet.

------------------------------

Once they were all together, everybody but Odd and Kirsten blushing furiously, they climbed down the sewer main and went towards the factory. Kirsten sighed when they passed the spot where XANA had tried to possess her through William, but she did her best not to think about what she was getting in to as she followed the others up the ladder.

She climbed out and looked around to get her bearings. She was standing on a bridge that crossed part of the Seine. It connected an old abandoned Renault Auto Factory on an island to the land on one side of the river. She looked down at the water rushing past, then heard Odd call her from inside the factory. She blinked and followed him into the factory.

She looked around and saw that she was standing on a balcony overlooking a gigantic empty factory floor. All of the machinery was gone. The others swung down to the floor on cables hanging from the ceiling, so she followed, still looking around as they got into the elevator. They stopped at a floor with what looked like a computer console and a holographic map. Jeremie got out, and the rest of them took the elevator down to the scanner room.

When the doors opened, Kirsten stared around in wonder. The room had metallic walls that were a muted golden color. The floor was the same. Spaced in a triangle around the center of the room were three gigantic cylinders.

"Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi, you three get in the scanners first," Jeremie said over some sort of intercom. The three of them got into the cylinders and the doors shut. There were a lot of whooshing noises as Jeremie spoke what seemed like random words over the intercom. Then the scanners, as Jeremie had called them, reopened. All three were empty. Aelita got in one and turned around to look at Kirsten.

"Are you coming?" she asked. "Don't worry, it's completely safe."

Kirsten nodded and shakily climbed into a scanner. She let out a little "eep!" when the doors closed. She shut her eyes as the thing whirred into life.

_Why did it have to be this?_ she asked herself. _Why do I have to be claustrophobic?_

She kept her eyes closed, so she wouldn't see exactly how small the inside of the scanner was. She had suffered from claustrophobia her entire life. It was usually pretty mild, but the scanner was pretty small, and there was clearly no way for her to leave without Jeremie reopening the door himself. Because of that, she was terrified.

She felt her sense of touch go first, then her sense of smell. Though she didn't notice, her taste was gone as well. All of the whooshing noises stopped, so she thought she had gone deaf as well. She forced open her eyes just to make sure that her sense of sight wasn't also gone, doing her best to ignore the claustrophobia. What she saw made her completely forget her claustrophobia.

There was a huge ice field, with various pathways of ice jutting off of it. Off to one side, she could see the edge of the ice and the beginning of what Odd had called the "digital sea" during his long-winded explanation. She looked down and saw that she was floating fifteen feet above the ground, and that everything below her waist was just a wireframe. That area quickly filled in with texture and she stopped floating, dropping to the ground below.

She screamed just as she hit the ground flat on her stomach. It only took her a moment to realize that she hadn't felt any pain. Her sense of touch was still gone.

She stood up and turned around to see Odd standing there, looking exactly like he had in her dream-that-was-not-a-dream, tail and all. She looked at her body and discovered that she was also dressed like she was when she fought off XANA's possession.

She smiled at Odd. "Where are the others?" she asked. Odd just pointed off to the side. She looked and saw Ulrich, Yumi, and Aelita grinning at her, also dressed differently.

"That was a spectacular entrance," Aelita said as she snickered slightly. "Though we were all the same the first time."

Kirsten grinned as well, then turned and looked around. "So, where are we?

Odd grinned widely and threw his arms out wide. "Welcome to Lyoko!" he shouted grandly.

------------------------------

_As I said before, PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!!! That's all I ask for. I just want to know how you like the chapter. Many of you are reading without reviewing, and that really bothers me. Just click the little button in the lower-left corner of the window and tell me what you think. It can be something simple, or a detailed review. I don't care. _

_Next chapter is already in progress, though I'm not giving a deadline, because I always miss them._


	6. A Change of Power

_(Ducks as a textbook flies overhead) Sorry! I didn't mean to leave it this long! I'm really sorry for that long wait. I was going to write this sooner, but real life unfortunately got in the way. As I said in the last chapter, I no longer set deadlines, because I always miss them, as this chapter probably proves. _

_Anyway, I got stuck in the middle of this chapter, then scrapped the whole thing and rewrote it. I hope you like it! It's kinda short compared to most of my other chapters, but still nearly twice as long as any chapter in the original, so I suppose that's just fine. _

------------------------------

_Chapter 6 – A Change of Power _

------------------------------

_Odd grinned widely and threw his arms out wide. "Welcome to Lyoko!" he shouted grandly. _

Kirsten laughed at Odd's usual antics, while the others sighed.

"Odd, what's with the theatrics?" Ulrich asked his friend. "She's been here before."

"I suppose so," Kirsten answered, beating Odd to the answer, "but I only remember that weird blue place."

"That would be Carthage," Jeremie answered. "It's one of the five sectors of Lyoko. You're in the Polar sector at the moment. There's also mountains, a forest, and a desert."

"Oh." She looked at the others and realized that only Ulrich and Odd seemed to have weapons. "Yumi? Aelita? Why don't you guys have weapons?"

Yumi smiled and pulled out two fans from behind her back, flicking them open. "These are my weapons," she said. Kirsten noted the sharp edges of the fans, and decided to avoid pissing off the Japanese teenager.

She looked at Aelita next. The pink-haired elf just shrugged. "I am originally from Lyoko, so I never got any weapons."

"As much as I'd like to stand around and chat, we should get some training time in!" Odd shouted. "Materialize our vehicles, Jeremie!"

"Of course. Just a second…huh?"

Ulrich frowned. "Is 'huh?' bad?" he asked.

"I…I don't know," Jeremie replied. "There's a new vehicle here. It looks like a hang-glider."

"Oh," Aelita said quietly, before speaking louder. "When Kirsten was possessed, I think she made it or something."

Back on Earth, Jeremie shrugged. "Well, I guess she can use that then. I'll virtualize it with the others," he decided, his fingers already flying across the keyboard.

On Lyoko, all four of the vehicles appeared. Kirsten's jaw dropped as she ran over to the glider. It was somewhat like a normal hang-glider, but without the usual straps and such. In addition, there were two small jets attached, one at the end of each wing. She grabbed the bar that hung down from the glider, and gasped as her feet left the ground.

Odd grinned as he jumped on his overboard. He heard Kirsten whoop with glee as the glider took off, and smiled as he followed.

Kirsten was having the time of her life. She was flying around in the air, doing loops and rolls and just generally having fun. Odd came up beside her on a flying hoverboard, soon followed by Ulrich on a one-wheeled flying motorcycle and Yumi and Aelita on some sort of hovercraft.

"Hehe, looks like she's got the hang of it," Odd pointed out with a wide grin. "Get it? The _HANG_ of it?"

The others, even Kirsten, glanced at him, then looked away, muttering "Shut up, Odd," in unison.

------------------------------

After exploring for a while and showing Kirsten a tower, they got down to the serious training. Since Ulrich's weapon was the closest to hers, she sparred with him the most. Odd was just being a general nuisance, hopping around and offering useless advice, while the other girls trained her in acrobatics and other things like that.

Eventually, the training turned into just having fun. Ulrich played supersonic tag with his clones while Kirsten and Odd played chicken in the air. Yumi and Aelita were having some sort of battle of wills. From what the others could see, Aelita was putting her strength into holding up a wall of ice, while Yumi was trying to use her telekinesis to break it.

Jeremie managed to open a window to see what they were doing, and was watching with a smile on his face. They didn't exactly get to relax so often, so he was glad they were enjoying it. Even _he _was enjoying it, just from watching them!

However, the temptation of the half-finished antivirus was too much for him to bear, and he eventually succumbed, opening a new window to work on his code.

Eventually though, as usual, XANA interrupted their fun in the form of an activated tower. Jeremie muttered a curse as the window he was working in was minimized and the superscanner appeared, showing an activated tower in the forest sector.

"Guys," Jeremie announced, "XANA activated a tower again! It's in the forest sector. Take the way tower, then head north!"

"Got it!" the other five affirmed. Kirsten and Odd waited a moment for the others to get on their vehicles, then headed off towards the way tower.

Kirsten looked back at Odd for a moment, then pulled back until she was level with him. The three others were up ahead. She took a moment to enjoy flying around, not afraid of the height. First of all, it was not real anyway. She was also only afraid of heights when she was standing on something tall and looking over the edge. That was just another strange quirk of hers.

"So, Odd, Yumi and Ulrich were blushing when we met up before going to the factory," she finally said to the blond-haired cat-boy next to him. "Is there any reason why?"

Odd grinned. "Well, I suppose I should tell you the whole story," he said as his grin grew even wider. "Be patient. It will take a while to tell, as it is quite a spectacular story, with all sorts of twists and turns and such…"

Kirsten waited for a moment, then grew impatient. "So?" she asked when she could no longer take the suspense. "Aren't you going to tell me the story?"

"I walked in on them kissing."

Kirsten waited for a moment again, then sighed. "That was the whole story, wasn't it?" she said with a sigh. Odd nodded, and she sighed again, rolling her eyes. "What was the point of—"

"LOOK OUT!" Odd shouted, cutting off her question. She looked forward again and shouted as she swerved to avoid a pillar of ice. Odd started laughing, and continued to do so, even with her glaring at him.

"Odd…" she snarled without any real venom in her voice. The boy in question continued to laugh as if he hadn't heard her. She finally gave up and her frown turned into a smile. She let out a chuckle of her own.

"Now look what you've done," he said. "We're way behind the others!"

With another sigh, Kirsten sped up, Odd following behind her.

------------------------------

After a minute or two of riding, they came within sight of the tower. It was glowing red, as usual. There were also the obligatory monsters guarding it. Kirsten pulled back slightly so she could stay out of sight, the others stopping next to her.

"Two Tarantulas and three Crabs," Odd said. "This shouldn't be too hard."

Ulrich looked around, frowning. "Has XANA started attacking in the real world yet?" he asked Jeremie.

"No, not as far as I know," was his reply. "Be careful."

"When am I not?" Odd asked with a smile. He looked at the others as they started laughing. "What? I'm serious!" he exclaimed, which just had them laughing harder. Rolling his eyes, he sped off towards the tower, the others trying to hold in their laughter as they followed.

Kirsten decided to take care of the Crabs. She flew towards them, letting go of the glider with one hand to hold her naginata. Holding it below her, she dove down towards them. She managed to slice the top of the Crab, but it didn't even seem phased by her attack.

"Kirsten!" Odd shouted. "You have to hit the symbol to kill it!"

She looked at the top of the Crab and saw what he was talking about. She circled around and dove again, managing to slice open the symbol this time. The Crab disappeared, leaving her free to take care of the other two with Odd's help.

------------------------------

Ulrich had his hands full dealing with one of the Tarantulas. It kept shooting at just the wrong times, forcing him to dodge and swerve off just before he would have destroyed it. He came around for another charge, and his overbike was immediately devirtualized, throwing him face-first into the frozen ground.

"Triplicate!" he shouted, splitting into three. He and his two clones circled the Tarantula, then sprinted straight towards it. It managed to pick off just one of them, but it was a clone, and the other two leapt on top of it, stabbing it in the head.

He glanced around as he fused back together. Kirsten and Odd had each taken care of one of the Crabs, and were working together on the last one. He glanced at Yumi, watching as she dodged several lasers on foot. The overwing had apparently already been devirtualized. Just as he was about to go help her, she flipped up over the monster and tossed a fan, hitting her target perfectly and destroying the second Tarantula. An explosion from his left told him that the last Crab was gone as well. He was about to call Aelita when he noticed that she was already running for the tower.

Just when he relaxed, everything went straight to hell. The Scyphozoa appeared from nowhere and grabbed her. She froze as it pressed three tentacles to her forehead. Ulrich swore and supersprinted towards her, followed by Yumi, Kirsten, and Odd.

"…drains her memory, but we don't know why…" he heard Odd explain to Kirsten.

"Hurry! Her memory is almost gone!" Jeremie shouted. Nobody bothered replying as they reached the monster. Ulrich jumped up and sliced off the tentacles with Kirsten's help as Odd and Yumi drove it off. Aelita dropped to the ground and stopped moving.

Kirsten walked up to Aelita once the Scyphozoa had disappeared, prodding the elfin girl with the butt of her naginata several times. Aelita remained unconscious on the ground. She raised an eyebrow and shouted "Jeremie! She's still not moving!"

"Her life points dropped while the Scyphozoa had her. Somehow it hurt her so much that she only has five points left," Jeremie said. "With her life that low, she doesn't have enough energy to wake up!"

Kirsten groaned as she kneeled next to her roommate. She went to shake the pink-haired girl's shoulders to wake her up, but stopped with her hands a couple inches above her. Her hands had started glowing blue for some reason. Before she had time to wonder what was going on, she noticed that Aelita's body had started glowing blue as well.

"What's going—" she started to ask, but she cut herself off when Aelita opened her eyes. "Aelita! You're awake!"

"Her life points just went back to a hundred!" Jeremie exclaimed happily, though he also sounded confused.

"I think Kirsten healed her," Odd explained. "I guess that's her power! Aelita, no time to lose!"

She nodded and ran into the tower. A moment later, it shifted from red to blue, and Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi were devirtualized, shortly followed by Aelita and Kirsten.

------------------------------

"Quick!" Odd exclaimed when they were all together in the elevator. "We have to get back to school! They've got meatballs and gravy tonight!"

"It doesn't matter what they have," Kirsten muttered, shaking her head. "Even if it was barely edible, you'd be just as excited." She stopped for a moment, then turned to Jeremie. "Why didn't we go back to the past?"

"Nothing happened in the real world, so there's no point. We didn't miss any classes or anything," he said. "Going back to the past increases XANA's power, so we only do it when we have to."

"Come on!" Odd shouted, already far ahead in the sewers. "We're gonna miss the food!"

"Odd!" everybody yelled in unison. "Will you _shut up_!"

------------------------------

_Well, that's it for this chapter. Please review and all that! Of course, most people don't read these things, so…yeah. Anyway, I have no idea when I'll update again. It could be up in a week, or it might take a month. Who knows? Hopefully it's not too long. I want to try to finish this story before summer vacation, so I'm free to work on other stuff. _


	7. A Change of Health

_I'm sorry I took so long to update! I hope I'm not losing too many readers this way._

_(Begin Excuse List)_

_I was too busy with school for a month or so, and then I was caught up in another story I'm working on (which will hopefully become my main story after this one). After that, my internet died, so I didn't even think of FanFiction for a while, until I finally just decided to finally finish the next chapter. I'm still aiming to be done before summer, but that's looking increasingly less likely._

_(End Excuse List)_

_Anyway, I hope you like this chapter!_

------------------------------

_Chapter 7 – A Change of Health_

------------------------------

Kirsten groaned as she sat up in bed, pounding on her alarm clock with her fist until she hit the "sleep" button.

"Coffee…I need caffeine…" she moaned as she slid out of bed, changing sleepily into a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with white lettering that said _"No, I'm not staring at you. You're just in the space that I'm staring off into while trying not to fall asleep."_

"You're not a morning person, are you?" Aelita asked her roommate as she got back from the showers with a towel around her neck. "You forgot your shower."

"Shower…at night now… Not as crowded…" Kirsten mumbled as she pulled on her shoes. "Need…coffee…"

Aelita laughed and held the door open as Kirsten stumbled out into the hallway. She almost ran into the wall a few times, and had a close call when Sissi opened her door, but she made it down to the bottom floor without crashing into anything. She left the building and meandered in the general direction of the cafeteria.

When she finally made it into the building, she walked straight towards the coffee machine. Picking up one of the Styrofoam cups next to it, she filled it to the brim and drank it without adding anything. When she finished after a few seconds, she filled up another cup, this time adding cream and sugar. Then she got in line for food as she sipped from the cup. By the time she reached their usual table, she was on her third cup and awake enough to look like she was alive, rather than a mindless zombie.

"Ah, much better," the newest Lyoko warrior sighed. "The coffee here isn't half-bad."

"Just try some of the coffee in the vending machines outside," somebody said, sitting down next to her. "That stuff is _vile_."

"Morning, Yumi," she said without looking away from her food. She began to wolf it down at a speed that rivaled Odd's. If she wasn't cramming food down her throat as fast as she could, she would have smiled. Yumi had been a lot friendlier lately, as if she had never doubted Kirsten in the first place.

"Morning, Kirsten," Yumi replied. "Careful there. You don't want to choke on something like Odd usually does."

"Yeah, I know. What is it…nine times in the past week?" Kirsten asked jokingly between bites. "I always have to pound on his back to help him cough it up. He probably has a huge bruise there now."

Yumi grinned as she began to eat her own food at a much slower pace. "By the way, did you know that there's a dance coming up next week?"

Kirsten swallowed. "No, I didn't, actually," she answered. "Did Ulrich ask you to it?"

Yumi rolled her eyes. "Odd told you that he saw us kissing, didn't he?"

"Actually, I kind of already knew you liked each other before that," was Kirsten's sheepish reply. "Odd, Aelita, and I were making fun of him all during science the day he confessed to you because he was staring out the window and thinking of you. Odd kept poking him, but he didn't even move at all!"

Kirsten started chuckling. When she stopped a moment later, she frowned. Yumi raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong?" she asked her new friend.

"I stopped laughing way too quickly," Kirsten answered with a grin. "I need more coffee. And you're answering my question when I get back."

Yumi just rolled her eyes as Kirsten stood up and went towards the coffee machine again.

------------------------------

Odd swore colorfully as he sprinted into the cafeteria, grabbed whatever food was left, and sprinted out again. He was late! His alarm clock had never gone off, and Ulrich hadn't woken him up! His friend was really going to pay for that. He checked his watch as he ran.

"Thirty seconds," he said, though it was muffled by a piece of toast stuffed half-way into his mouth. "I can make it."

He ran towards his classroom.

------------------------------

"Where's Odd?" Aelita asked. "He's usually not this late to class."

As if on cue, the door suddenly opened and slammed into the wall with a loud _Bang!_ There stood Odd Della Robbia, complete with a red-sweaty face, a piece of buttered toast sticking out of his mouth, and a bowl of cereal and milk precariously balanced in one hand, with a spoon in the other. The bell rang just a moment later.

Kirsten immediately snickered, and was soon laughing so hard that she fell out of her chair.

"Kirsten?" her pink-haired roommate asked. "Are you okay?"

Kirsten was laughing just as hard. She was getting weird looks from the rest of the class now. Aelita glanced at Jeremie, who had his laptop opened. He looked up at her and shook his head, and she knew exactly what he meant.

_XANA hasn't activated a tower._

Eventually Kirsten calmed down enough so she could get back into her seat. She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

"Sorry, I drank a little too much coffee this morning," she said with a slight stutter, her left shoulder twitching.

"A little?" Odd asked. "How much is a little too much?"

"Um…I think I had four…no…five cups? No, maybe six or seven…" Kirsten trailed off still twitching and stuttering. "Yeah…eight over my limit, which is usually four…so…I had twelve cups. Seven had some cream and sugar, but the other five were just black coffee… Drinking it black is good for waking me up, but it tastes so much better with cream and—"

"Kirsten?" Odd asked after swallowing his toast. He put his cereal

"I can't decide whether taste or energy is more important…" Kirsten said before suddenly realizing that Odd had said her name. "Yeah?"

"You're rambling."

"Sorry."

After that, she managed to settle down and at least look like she was paying attention. Her attention span was far too short at the moment to even think about science. Instead, she doodled on a sheet of paper. Thankful that it was her left shoulder that was twitching, rather than her right one, which would have messed up her drawings, she sketched a picture of Odd sitting at his desk, from her point of view. He was in the row right in front of her, which was rather convenient, as she could study him while looking like she was paying attention.

Eventually, she finished, admired her work for a moment, and moved on to another sheet of paper, sketching out Ulrich and Yumi sitting together on a bench, Ulrich's arm around Yumi's shoulder. She extended the picture, adding another nearby bench with Jeremie and Aelita in a similar position. She finally added Odd and herself. She intended to make their positioning less intimate than the two couples, but it ended up looking like Odd had reached around behind her, grasped her shoulder, and pulled her close.

Just as she was about to add the forest in the background, the bell rang.

------------------------------

"Say, Odd, are you going to the dance next week?"

Odd looked up from what was supposed to be a sheet of math notes. He shrugged.

"I don't know," he replied to Kirsten. "It would be kind of awkward, don't you think? I mean, Ulrich and Yumi are together, as are Jeremie and Aelita, so we'd just be left out…"

_Well, there's one obvious solution,_ Odd thought to himself, _but neither of us like each other that way. We're just friends._

Then the bell rang. Kirsten jumped up and hurried out of the classroom, Odd hot on her heels.

It was, after all, time for lunch.

------------------------------

Ulrich, Yumi, Jeremie, and Aelita weren't in the cafeteria when the two arrived. "Ulrich and Yumi probably just want to spend some time together," Kirsten said to herself. "Jeremie and Aelita too."

Odd nodded as he polished off his sixth serving of food. Kirsten, though she had been hungry only moments ago, could not bring herself to eat her food. She felt slightly sick, and an ominous feeling plagued her. Something was going to go completely wrong soon.

She jerked out of her thoughts when she thought she saw something flash in her food. Her eyes widened. Surely it couldn't be… She looked up at Odd just in time to catch the same flash in his food too. This time, it was unmistakable.

The XANA eye had appeared in his meal for a second.

"Wait, Odd!" she suddenly shouted. Nobody else heard her because of the noise of the cafeteria. "Don't eat that!"

But it was too late. He swallowed his mouthful of spaghetti just as Kirsten yelled at him. He wondered if she was concerned about him eating too much. Surely after knowing him for so long, she'd know…

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Sure, school food is probably toxic, but the pasta actually isn't half bad."

"I saw XANA's symbol in your food!" she exclaimed.

"What? No, it can't be. I'm perfectly fi—" Odd started to say, before his eyes rolled up and he fell over. The cafeteria was stunned into silence when they saw what had happened.

"ODD!" Kirsten shouted. She looked up at all of the shocked faces around her. "Somebody call nine-one-one!"

------------------------------

"You know…I really love you…"

Yumi chuckled. "If I got a nickel every time you said that, you'd have a very rich girlfriend," she said. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. I love you too."

This time, when Ulrich's lips found Yumi's, nothing disrupted their moment. Their kiss stretched on into eternity, leaving them both slightly dazed when they both pulled back for air what seemed like years later.

Then Ulrich's phone rang. He grimaced and answered it.

"Hello?" he asked. "Kirsten? What's wrong? Why do you sound…what? WHAT?!"

He shut the phone and turned to Yumi.

"XANA attacked Odd by poisoning the food or something. He's on his way to the hospital!" Ulrich exclaimed, already standing up.

"WHAT?!"

------------------------------

"Teenaged Caucasian male, low heart rate, blood pressure dropping!" a paramedic shouted as he wheeled a stretcher through the entrance of the Emergency Room. "Let's get him to the ICU!"

"Put him in room three!"

Kirsten sat in the waiting room and put her head in her hands, tears already falling from her eyes.

"Not again…please…not again…" she begged over and over again. "I'll do anything…anything at all… Please…don't kill him… Not again…"

Her phone rang, and she picked it up. "Hello?" she asked, trying to speak without breaking out into fresh sobs. "Kirsten speaking.

"Kirsten! Do you think you'll be fine on your own at the hospital?" It was Aelita on the other end. "We have to stop XANA's attack now!"

"O…okay…" Kirsten stuttered. "I'll come too."

"No," Aelita said firmly. "You should stay at the hospital. It's really far from the factory, and I'm sure you want to stay with Odd instead."

"Okay…please hurry…" she whispered. "I don't know…how long he'll last…"

------------------------------

"Transfer Ulrich, Aelita, Yumi! Scanner! Virtualization!" Jeremie said as he virtualized the three of them. They landed in the forest region on top of their vehicles. Aelita used Odd's overboard, since he wasn't there.

"The tower is due north! Now go!"

Rather than wasting time answering, the three sped off on their respective vehicles, going faster than they ever had before.

Odd's life was on the line.

------------------------------

Kirsten walked into Odd's room several minutes later. He was stabilized, but not getting any better. The doctors were busy analyzing the results of their various tests, so the room was empty.

She was silent as she closed the door and went to sit by the bed. Odd was unconscious, so the only noise was the occasionally beep of the heart monitor. His heart rate was far lower than it should be.

Kirsten suddenly remembered something that Odd had said when he was explaining everything, just after she was accepted into the group.

_He said something about using my powers in the real world, right?_

She immediately stood up, checked to make sure nobody was watching, and placed her hands over Odd's chest. She felt around inside her mind until she found the power that let her heal on Lyoko. She forced it through her hands into Odd's body.

A blue aura appeared around her hands, and spread to encase Odd's torso. The glow quickly disappeared, and Kirsten waited with baited breath.

Luck, however, was not with her that day.

Nothing happened…

And then, the beeping heart monitor fell silent.

------------------------------

Meanwhile, on Lyoko, Ulrich was desperate. He ran around so fast that it seemed like his feet weren't touching the ground. He was _not_ going to let his best friend die!

Luck was not with any of the gang today. Ulrich and Yumi had been fighting nonstop for at least ten minutes, and there was still no way for Aelita to sneak past the monsters and into the tower. The Scyphozoa hadn't appeared yet, but nobody wanted to wait and find out.

Ulrich was hit again, leaving him with a measly ten life points, the same as Yumi. He dodged and weaved around, going too fast for the naked eye to see, until he spotted his opening. A tarantula turned, apparently choosing to go after Yumi instead. Ulrich ran up behind it and jumped, slicing its head clean through. Yumi paused a moment to nod to him in thanks, then went back to fighting a pair of megatanks and a crab.

Ulrich decided that he'd had enough. He ran over to Aelita.

"I'm going to run you to the tower, okay?" he asked her as he grabbed her hand. "Hold on tight, you'll probably be dragging on the ground."

Aelita nodded and he took off, searching for a path through the mess of monsters.

------------------------------

"Miss Anderson?"

Kirsten looked up at the doctor in front of her. After Odd's heart had stopped beating, she had been shoved back into the waiting room. The young man sighed and looked down at the floor.

"I'm sorry, we did everything we could for your friend," he said. "But…"

Kirsten stood up and ran down the hallway towards Odd's room. When she reached his room, she pulled the door open so fast that it slammed against the wall and swung shut behind her.

Odd was still on the bed in the same position. There was an impenetrable silence in the room. Without the sound of the heart monitor to hold back the silence, it was utterly quiet. Though there were still noises from the hall and other nearby rooms, Kirsten heard nothing. Even her occasional sobs and sniffs went unheard.

She was too shocked to keep crying. She chose instead to run to his bed and collapse to her knees next to it.

Though she didn't know it, the poison had not just infected Odd. A weaker form of it was in all of the cafeteria food, and there were already more patients in critical condition. The epidemic was spreading. Of course, within the quiet room, she was unable to hear the shouts of doctors and the sounds of more stretchers being wheeled into the Emergency Room. She heard only silence.

"No…" she whispered. "NO!"

She stood up and once again placed her hands on Odd's still chest. Her vision narrowed until she only saw the dead boy in front of her. Then she saw something completely different.

------------------------------

Aelita finally made it to the tower and entered the code. In record time, Jeremie managed to get the Return to the Past program up and running in less than a second. His fingers actually blurred as he typed coordinates, until his pinky came to rest on the Enter key.

"Please, don't be dead yet," he said as he pressed the key.

------------------------------

Kirsten was in a dark tunnel with a bright white light far out in front of her. Odd was also in front of her, slowly walking towards the light.

"ODD!!!" she screamed. He stopped to look at her.

"Kirsten? What are you doing here? Are you dead too?"

"No! Neither are you!" she shouted. "Please, come back!"

"**You don't belong here,"** a deep voice boomed. **"Return to your world, little one."**

"I can't come back. I'm already dead."

"No! I'm healing you with my powers! Please, come back!"

"**It is not your time yet."**

"I told you, there's no going back for me," Odd said, a sad little smile on his face. "You can still return though. Live without me. Enjoy your life."

"I can't!" she shouted to him. "I can't enjoy life without you! I…I love you!"

Odd was too stunned to say anything.

"**His soul is already lost, but you may still return."**

"SHUT UP!!!" Kirsten screamed, finally losing it. "TAKE MY SOUL INSTEAD!!!"

"**I have never seen such a spirited child,"** the voice said, without showing any emotion.

"YOU HAVEN'T SEEN ANYTHING YET!!!" Kirsten screamed before she felt herself disappearing. Her eyesight slowly dimmed, and her eyes closed a moment later. She heard Odd whisper four words before she fell into the darkness.

"I…love you too."

In the real world, Kirsten collapsed to the ground as a white light engulfed her, the hospital, and the rest of the world.

------------------------------

_Will Odd make it? Will Kirsten make it? Review and find out!_

_I have absolutely no idea when I'll update this story, as I'm really busy with school and stuff like that, so don't pester me about updating. I won't post anything until I've written something good and worth posting, okay? I'm still trying to finish this before summer break, but it's looking increasingly unlikely._


	8. A Change of Form

_I'm SOOOOO sorry I didn't update sooner! I would have updated at least a month ago, but school unfortunately got in the way, and I was also quite uninspired. Now that school is no longer an issue (it ended just a couple days ago), I should be able to update more. I also didn't update on the thirtieth like I said I would because this chapter was only half-finished. Then I left my house to go on a trip on the thirty-first, came back for less than an hour on June first, and just got back from another trip yesterday. So, I'm wiped, and you are really lucky to get this today._

_Anyway, on to the story!_

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

_Chapter 8 – A Change of Form_

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Kirsten! Kirsten, are you alright?"

Kirsten mumbled something incomprehensible and slowly opened her eyes. She was lying on a bed in the infirmary, a heavy weariness pressing down on her. Every muscle ached and moved like molasses. She had never been so tired before. Ulrich, Jeremie, Aelita, and Yumi were all looking down at her, various expressions of worry and concern etched on their faces.

"Thank God you're okay," Yumi said with a relieved sigh. "When we went back to the past you were unconscious, and it looked like you just fainted during class."

"How long was I out?" the weary girl mumbled. "Is Odd okay? Did it work?"

"Well, our last class just ended ten minutes ago," Jeremie said, "so you've been unconscious for over five hours."

As much as Kirsten needed to know the answer to that question, Jeremie still hadn't answered the more important one. She didn't really care how long she had been unconscious, not as much as she cared about Odd.

"What about Odd?" she asked, voicing her concerns. "Is he okay?"

"See for yourself," a muffled voice said from the bed to her right. She smiled and looked over to see the telltale spike of blond hair poking out from under the covers. "I feel like crap, but at least I'm alive."

Kirsten let out the breath she had been holding. "You're okay…" she mumbled. "I'm so glad it worked."

"Yeah, no wonder you're so tired," Odd said. "It must have taken a lot to heal me."

"So, what happened?" Aelita asked. "Why did it take so much energy from you two.

"I died," Odd said. The other four occupants of the room froze. He waited a moment, then laughed. "I've always wanted to say something like that!"

"You…died?" Jeremie asked. "Why are you still here?"

"Kirsten," Odd said, before closing his eyes and fell asleep.

"Wait, so you brought him back from hell?" Ulrich asked.

"Yeah," Kirsten said with a yawn.

"Hey! I resent that!" Odd managed to say, apparently not as asleep as everybody had thought.

The group shared a good laugh, glad that the crisis was over. Little did they know that more would come.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Kirsten hummed happily to herself as she wandered down the hall to Odd's dorm. They had finally been released from the infirmary a few hours ago, after getting a full day of rest, and Odd had headed straight for his room to get more sleep, of course.

_I swear, if he's still asleep, _Kirsten thought, _I'll dump water on his face._

She reached the door and was about to knock when she heard a noise from inside. Leaning closer, she realized that it was the sound of somebody sobbing inside. Without taking the time to knock, she opened the door and saw Odd sitting on his bed, head in his hands, crying like there was no tomorrow. Kirsten was taken aback, not expecting the super-happy, always-hyper Odd to be crying like that.

"Odd?" she asked quietly. "What's wrong?"

"I…I can't do it," he said quietly, not surprised at all to see her. "I can't keep acting this way, knowing…knowing what happened…"

Kirsten sat down next to him and put her hand on his shoulder. She realized that they had ironically switched positions and she was comforting him, returning the favor from so many days ago.

"What happened?" she whispered to him. "Why are you so sad?"

"My parents…they're dead," he muttered. "My house burned down, and they were trapped inside. The firemen were too late and only saved me. I've been an orphan for five years now…"

_So, that's why he was able to empathize with me so much when I started crying,_ Kirsten thought. It was true. He had acted like he knew exactly what she was going through. He _had_ known what she was going through. He had gone through something like it himself.

Just thinking about her own loss made her start crying too, so she hugged him tight and they cried into each other's shoulders.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Several hours later, after several long conversations about nothing in particular, a much happier Kirsten looked up into Odd's blue-purple eyes, her own hazel eyes bright with curiosity.

"Odd," she began, "about what happened in the tunnel…"

Odd didn't even have to wonder what she meant. He knew exactly what she was referring to…

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"_I told you, there's no going back for me," Odd said, a sad little smile on his face. "You can still return though. Live without me. Enjoy your life."_

"_I can't!" she shouted to him. "I can't enjoy life without you! I…I love you!"_

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Kirsten, did you mean what you said?" he asked her, cutting off whatever she would have said. "Did you really mean it?"

Kirsten looked down at her lap. "Yes," she said, almost too quiet to hear. "Yes, I meant what I said… I still do… Did you?"

Odd nodded slowly. "Yes, yes I did."

Kirsten grinned. "Well then. I guess we're going out then!"

"Don't get too smug," Odd warned with a touch of sarcasm. "I've dated nearly every girl in our grade, as I'm sure the rumors tell you."

"Yep, everybody except Sissi the sissy and Aelita," Kirsten responded, trying not to laugh. "I figured it was just a matter of time before you asked me out too! But, have you ever loved any of them."

"More than you," Odd joked. Kirsten punched him.

"No, really?" she asked.

"Well, I guess not. I loved a couple of them, but nowhere near as much as you. They all hate me now anyway."

She just grinned at him. "Good, I don't want you cheating on me now."

"Hey!" Odd exclaimed indignantly. "Just who do you think I am?"

"Odd Della Robbia, infamous throughout the school for dating over three girls at once," she responded succinctly.

"Hehe," Odd muttered, rubbing the back of his neck with embarrassment. "I didn't realize you knew about that…"

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Hey, Odd," Kirsten asked as they wandered down the almost-empty hall, "isn't there a dance coming up soon?"

"Yeah," he replied. "It's on December first, but they decided to make it have a Halloween theme because the Halloween Dance was cancelled. We have to dress up too…"

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "Let's dress up like we're on Lyoko!"

Odd sighed. "How will I ever find a cat costume though?" he asked. "That idea probably won't work…"

"Spoilsport," Kirsten muttered as she yawned and glanced at her watch. "Huh? Only eight? It's _**WAY**_ too early to be tired! I need coffee!!!" She ran off down the hall.

"Don't drink too much!" Odd shouted as she disappeared around a corner. "I really hope she doesn't get hyper again. She really scared us last time…"

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Despite Odd's hopes, Kirsten was twitching horribly as she wandered back to her dorm room, loaded up on so much caffeine that she couldn't stand still. When she reached her dorm, she spent a full minute trying to steady her hand enough to unlock the door. She finally managed it and went inside. Aelita was off somewhere with Jeremie, so she had the room to herself.

Since there was nobody there to listen, she started talking rapidly, the caffeine speeding up her speech until it was practically impossible for anybody to understand.

"Lyoko's such a weird place and there are monsters and XANA I wonder what's that stupid virus' problem and why it keeps attacking us all the time and why I keep getting possessed and…" she muttered quickly, still twitching.

Aelita opened the door, saw Kirsten sitting on her bed ranting in a mixture of French and English, and decided to just leave her friend alone until she was somewhat sane. Kirsten's rant eventually moved on to other subjects. She talked about her friends and what they looked like on Lyoko, and finally about how Aelita deactivates towers.

"…and then she enters the code which is…um…Code Lyoko and…woah!"

She cut herself off when she noticed that her whole body was glowing a bright blue. She held in a shout as she began to float about a foot off the ground. The glow flashed a bright white, then faded away. When she looked down at her body, she saw that she was dressed in her Lyoko outfit, complete with her naginata!

"Ohmygodwhattheheckhappenedtome?" she asked, still on a caffeine high and speaking faster than ever because of the adrenaline now pumping through her veins. "Ijustsaidcodelyokoandthen…"

Her body glowed and flashed again, and she turned back to normal. Immediately she threw open her door and ran down the hall.

"OhwowIhavetotellOddsohecanhaveacostumeforthedanceand…"

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

_Hehe…I found a HUGE plot hole in chapter 2 while I was rereading it. I implied that Kirsten's dad wasn't actually dead, which is definitely wrong. I haven't fixed it yet, but I will sometime today. If anybody else finds a plot hole, big or small, please don't hesitate to let me know so I can fix it right away! I'm also going through all of the chapters, fixing small errors here and there. If you spot ANYTHING, let me know, okay?_

_Anyway, kind of a short chapter (by my current standards), but the next one will be better, and up much sooner than this one was. I'm SOOOO sorry you guys had to wait so long! I'll do my best to keep you from having to wait that long ever again, okay? Anyway, please review and all that stuff!_


	9. A Change of Enemies

**_Yes, I know, I'm horribly late. Please forgive me. Anyway, huge plot twist in this chapter, and the story itself becomes apparent. I planned something like this in another story I was going to write at some point a LONG time ago (maybe a year or so) but that story crashed and burned, and I decided to fit it into this story instead. This chapter totally takes the story in a new direction. _**

**_Anyway, go and read! _**

**_–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– _**

**_Chapter 9 – A Change of Enemies_**

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"OddOddOddOddOddOddOdd!!!"

Ulrich's eyes opened slowly and he looked around at his dorm room. Finally, his eyes slid to the alarm clock and he groaned.

"I know I'm usually up early, but give me a break!" he muttered. "It's only 2 AM!"

"OddOddOddOddOddOddOdd!!!"

Ulrich realized that the high-pitched female voice outside his dorm was probably Kirsten, and that she may possibly be calling for Odd. Then again, it was very hard to decipher, as she was speaking faster than a normal human could. There was only one explanation.

"She overdosed on coffee again," Ulrich muttered as he got up. He shuffled over to the door as the haze of sleep lifted, and seemed somewhat awake by the time he opened the door. Sure enough, there was Kirsten, in all of her twitching, hyper glory.

"It's two in the morning," he said when Kirsten realized he was there. "Bother us later."

"It'sreallyimportant!!!" she shouted at him as he jumped in surprise. He glanced up and down the hallway and pulled her inside, shutting the door soundlessly.

"Quiet!" he hissed to her. "If anyone else hears you in the boy's dorm, you'll get a detention for sure!"

"Okayokayfine," she muttered as she leapt onto Odd's bed. "Wakey-wakey!" she shouted at him, completely disregarding Ulrich's warning.

"No…" Odd muttered, "anything but the meatballs and gravy! Take the soup surprise!"

Once again, Odd's dream had something to do with food. Ulrich wasn't surprised. He watched as Kirsten shook his shoulders as hard as she could, and he fully woke up.

"But I want my meatballs and…oh…hi Kirsten," Odd said to the girl as she bounced up and down on the side of his bed. "What do you want?"

"Watch this," she told him, her words no longer scrambled together. The coffee was probably losing its effect.

Odd just stared at her. "Watch what?"

"Just watch," she said as she closed her eyes. "Code Lyoko."

Just like before, her body began glowing bright blue. She hovered just above the ground and there was a bright flash of light. When the two boys could see again, they both gasped.

"How…" Odd muttered.

"I dunno!" Kirsten exclaimed. "You just say the words and you change! It's awesome!!!"

"Okay…" Odd muttered. He stood up and said "Code Lyoko!"

His transformation went the same way as Kirsten, but with a purple glow instead of blue. Within moments, he was standing there in his cat form.

"Wow!" he said. "This is awesome!"

Kirsten laughed as he did several backflips effortlessly. He was about to climb up the wall when Ulrich grabbed his shoulder.

"Don't go leaving claw marks all over the dorm," he scolded the cat-boy. "Jim will pitch a fit if that happens."

"Speaking of which," Kirsten muttered, "I better get back to my dorm."

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

The next day was the day of the Costume Dance. Five of the six of them had transformed into their Lyoko forms. Jeremie, however, went out and bought his own. He ended up going as a vampire, and his costume wasn't half-bad.

All of them stayed together for a few moments, but eventually split up.

"I love you, Yumi," Ulrich whispered to his girlfriend as he rested his chin on her shoulder. They stepped slowly in time with the song.

"I love you too," Yumi whispered back. She leaned back to look him in the eyes. A moment later, they were kissing.

From across the gym, Sissi glowered at them, but they didn't notice. She ignored everybody around her until William finally got her to dance.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"Aww, isn't that cute," Odd whispered as she spied on the couple.

"Odd, even though spying on them is fun," Kirsten muttered, "I'd rather be doing what they're doing."

With that, she grabbed his head and pulled him into a kiss.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"You're so beautiful, Princess," Jeremie said to Aelita as he tried not to step on her feet.

"Now that you took those fangs out, you look handsome too," Aelita joked. "Handsome enough to kiss."

Jeremie didn't need another invitation. He leaned towards her and kissed her.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"And now that the dance is nearly over," Jim announced several hours later, "I would like to announce the winners of our costume contest! We have prizes for the boy, girl, and couple with the best costumes."

The students turned to him and almost started to pay attention. Sissi usually won every year, so there wasn't much to be interested in. Still, if anyone stopped looking towards him, he would probably notice and start yelling.

"First is the best-dressed boy," Jim announced. The crowd actually paid attention to him now, because it was physically impossibly for Sissi to win. "The boy with the best costume is…Odd Della Robbia!"

The audience clapped, while the Lyoko group and a few others cheered. Odd walked up and accepted the prize, which was a gift certificate to a local restaurant.

"Next is the best-dressed girl," Jim continued. Here, everybody stopped paying attention. Nobody really cared, as Sissi was about to win anyway. She was already sauntering towards the stage. "This year's prize goes to…Aelita Stones!"

"WHAT?!" Sissi screamed. Unfortunately, she was drowned out by the crowd. They were clapping and cheering quite enthusiastically because Sissi hadn't won for once. She continued ranting until the cheering died down. Aelita had received the same prize as Odd.

"Finally, the couple with the best costumes is…" Jim announced, trailing off for dramatic effect. The crowd waited with bated breath. "…Ulrich Stern and Yumi Ishiyama!"

There was more cheering as the samurai and the geisha received their prizes.

"Could this night get any better?" Ulrich asked himself as he and Yumi walked back into the crowd.

"Well, maybe with a little help from me…" Yumi said as she leaned in to kiss him yet again. When they broke apart, Ulrich glanced past her and paled.

"Oh no," he muttered. Yumi quickly spun around and saw that one of the overhead lights was sparking. A moment later, a wisp of black mist leaked from it. She cursed in Japanese and grabbed Ulrich's wrist, dragging him through the crowd.

"Jeremie!" she shouted over the music that had just started back up. "Where are you?!"

"Here!" he shouted. The two followed his voice and found him and Aelita. A moment later, Odd appeared with Kirsten.

"Okay, I suppose you all know what's going on now," Jeremie muttered, "so let's get over to the factory!"

The other five nodded. All six of them made their way to the exit. They finally got out of the gym and onto the grounds, then sprinted for the manhole in the forest.

Kirsten glanced back as she ran and moaned. "Oh hell, the smoke is coming after us!" she shouted. "Put the pedal to the metal!"

That said, she poured on another burst of speed. It wasn't enough though. The smoke went into her head and she felt herself starting to lose control.

"Kirsten!" Odd shouted when he saw her fall to her knees, holding her head and groaning in pain. He ran back to her and knelt next to her. "Are you okay?"

"No!" she shouted. "No, I'm not! Hurry up and go to Lyoko! XANA's possessing me!"

"But," Odd started.

"No, you can't help me here," she muttered, feeling her control slip. "Help me by getting Aelita to the tower…"

She glanced up at him and he saw her pupils blurring, warping into the familiar symbol of XANA.

"Hurry up!" she shouted. A moment later, her eyes closed and her hands dropped to her sides. She stood up.

"Go!" Odd shouted. "I'll try to hold her off!"

They didn't ask any questions, choosing instead to run off into the forest.

"Come on XANA, let's see what you've got," Odd muttered. Kirsten's eyes opened and he saw the usual eye of XANA in place of her pupils. She smirked.

"The mission will proceed at any cost," she muttered in a distorted voice. "Whether it takes your life…or hers…"

Her figure blurred and disappeared, moving towards the factory. Odd cursed and followed at a slower pace, pulling out his phone to call Jeremie.

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"Okay Odd, hurry up," Jeremie said. Odd's icon disappeared from his screen as the phone program shut off. "Guys, XANA managed to evade Odd and should be here any second. I'll start the process."

He waited as the three got into the scanners, then started typing furiously.

"Transfer Ulrich."

Several stories below him, one of the three scanners lit up.

"Transfer Yumi."

The next scanner lit.

"Transfer Aelita."

The final scanner began to glow.

"Scanner."

Three wireframe figures appeared on his screen. They were gradually filled with color. When that was finished, he tapped the Enter key.

"Virtualization!"

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Once again, Kirsten woke up in a dark room, surrounded by a barrier of black smoke. She stood up and looked for the hole in the barrier. She spent several minutes looking, but found absolutely nothing. This time, there was no break in the barrier, not even a needle-sized hole. She collapsed to the ground and let out a sob.

"Help me!" she shouted into the darkness around her. "Let me out!"

**_No,_ **the voice of XANA said in her mind, **_I plan to keep you for a very long time._ **

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Kirsten reached the factory and jumped down to the floor. She blurred for a moment and reappeared in the elevator. The console sparked when she gestured towards it, and the elevator began to move down. When she reached the correct floor, the panel sparked again and the doors opened to reveal the scanner room.

She stepped into the scanner and touched the inside wall with her palm. The entire chamber sparked and the doors slid shut as it warmed up.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Jeremie was in the middle of sending vehicles to those already on Lyoko when the console stopped responding. A window appeared in the middle, which showed Kirsten being virtualized in her possessed form. The green wireframe was slowly filled in with color, starting with the black boots and jeans, and moving up as the red gem appeared in her silver belt, a black tank-top with a red XANA symbol appeared, and finally the black gloves and the naginata on her back were filled in with texture.

"Oh no," Jeremie muttered. "XANA's definitely up to something strange."

The console went back to normal. He immediately went back to typing.

"Hey, Einstein," Ulrich shouted, "what's taking so long?"

"Kirsten virtualized herself and that froze up the console. You'll get your vehicles right…now. Now I have to transfer Odd."

In front of the three in Lyoko's ice sector, three vehicles appeared.

"Thanks, Jeremie," Yumi said as she leapt on the overwing. Odd appeared and landed right on the overboard, and Ulrich got on the overbike.

"Okay, Yumi and Odd, go after Kirsten. She's headed towards Carthage already, so get to the edge of the sector as fast as possible. Ulrich and Aelita, head towards the activated tower, straight north," Jeremie ordered.

"Roger that," Odd said as he sped off with Yumi towards Carthage. Aelita hopped on the overbike and Ulrich sped off in the opposite direction.

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"Laser Arrow!" Odd shouted, shooting several arrows as soon as he caught sight of Kirsten in Carthage. She blocked them casually with her naginata without even looking in his direction. She continued down the hallway, Odd and Yumi close behind.

Finally, they made their way through Carthage and reached the elevator. Kirsten's elevator left just before they got there, so they took the next one, arriving not long after she did. She was already tapping the holographic console.

"Jeremie," Yumi muttered, "what is she doing?"

"I don't know, let me see if I can look into it."

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Jeremy began typing faster than ever before, his fingers becoming blurs. XANA was messing with the Carthage console, and that could never be good.

When he finally saw what was happening, he gasped, then swore vehemently.

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"STOP HER!" Jeremie shouted, his voice echoing all around Lyoko. "SHE'S GOING TO DESTROY LYOKO!"

Yumi and Odd didn't wait for an explanation. They jumped into action. Odd ran out and shot at Kirsten, who once again blocked the shots. Unfortunately, Yumi's fans came at her from the other side, and she was forced to jump to avoid them. Jeremie attempted to bypass the Carthage console as the three fought harder than ever before.

Yumi dodged a swing of Kirsten's naginata, and blocked the next one with her fans. She tossed one and wasn't surprised when it was blocked. Odd came up from the other side and shot several arrows, distracting Kirsten just long enough so Yumi could get the side of her stomach with her fan.

Kirsten let out an inhuman growl and ran for the console, her form blurring as she suddenly appeared in front of it. With a wide smirk, she tapped it once.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

"What the…" Jeremie muttered, "XANA's transferring to another tower…but it's not in Lyoko…"

He watched as the tower in the ice sector deactivated itself. Even though XANA was no longer using it, Kirsten remained possessed.

"It must be using some other tower somewhere," Jeremie concluded, "but where? Why did XANA leave Lyoko?"

After a few moments of typing, he took a second to read something from the screen and gasped.

"The Digital Sea?"

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With the tower of the ice sector deactivated, the four outer sectors of Lyoko were peaceful. There were no monsters. All forty towers had a calm blue aura.

Then, slowly, bits of the ice sector began to disappear, losing all texture and becoming a wireframe before fading out completely. It started at just one edge, but quickly spread, until holes were forming throughout the sector. The other three sectors were the same.

Lyoko was being deleted.

Ulrich swore as he tried to outrace the wave of destruction coming towards him. Aelita clung tightly to his stomach as they went faster than ever.

Finally, Ulrich sighed. "Jeremie, I can't outrun this. You have to devirtualize us."

Instead of hearing anything from Jeremie, he, Aelita, and the Overbike faded away just as the ground beneath them did the same.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Odd fired another arrow at Kirsten, but she leaned to the side and it shot harmlessly past her shoulder. He watched as it headed for the barrier that surrounded the sector, only to see that the barrier had disappeared. Carthage was, for the first time, exposed to the virtual sky and Digital Sea of Lyoko.

Odd looked back behind him and watched as the sphere of sector five began to fade away from the inside out. Kirsten leapt off the platform and fell towards the Digital Sea.

"NO!" Odd shouted as he jumped after her. "KIRSTEN!!! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!!!"

"I'm sorry Odd, but I have to devirtualize all of you," Jeremie said. "Soon there won't be anything to stand on and you'll hit the sea."

"NO!" Odd yelled, anger and desperation obvious in his voice. "NOT UNTIL I SAVE HER!"

"We have no choice! Devirtualization!"

"NOOOOO!" Odd screamed as he saw his feet turn into a wireframe. Just before he faded away, a faint red shield glowed around Kirsten and she hit the Digital Sea with a small splash.

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**_Yeah, I know, it's kind of similar to what happened with William. I've actually been planning something about XANA taking control of Kirsten for a long time (since the first time Kirsten was possessed, actually). Don't worry, the Digital Sea will be different from the one shown in the show, and their method of getting there will be different too. I had this idea a while ago, before the whole William thing, though it definitely changed since then. I was originally going to have her hide in Carthage, but the Digital Sea is more fun, and I've got some really good ideas for it… _**

**_Anyway, one more thing: I've changed the storyline so much now that I'm not sure if anything after this will be even remotely the same as the original story. Don't expect this to tie in to the sequel, "Living Up To A Legend." This will either be a stand-alone fic, or I'll wait a while before writing a sequel. Now that S4 is well underway, I'm much more inspired. _**

**_PLEASE review, and if you really like it, tell other people about it. I could always use more readers! _**

**_Oh, right, I just want to give a quick little hint about what might happen in the next chapter. I'm pretty sure that, if things go as planned, I'll be explaining why XANA is always after Kirsten. _**


	10. The Missing Member

_**Last Chapter:**_

"_NOOOOO!" Odd screamed as he saw his feet turn into a wireframe. Just before he faded away, a faint red shield glowed around Kirsten and she hit the Digital Sea with a small splash._

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**_Chapter 10 - The Missing Member_**

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It was morning. The Sun was still rising, shining down upon France with a warm orange glow. The day was just beginning. Adults were at work or on the way. For the most part, teenagers and kids were still fast asleep. However, in one dorm within Kadic Academy, a sleeping boy shifted slightly and opened his eyes.

Ulrich glanced around the room in a daze for a moment, until his mind caught up with him. When he remembered what had happened the day before, he quickly glanced at his spike-haired roommate.

"Odd?" he asked. The blond boy was not asleep, as Ulrich had expected. Instead, he sat on his head with his back against the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest. His arms were wrapped around his legs, and his head rested on his knees. The morning sunlight streaming through the window seemed to stop just before reaching him. He was in shadow, and not because there was something between him and the sun.

"What?" Odd asked dejectedly.

"Why are you already up?"

"Never slept," the blond muttered. "Been awake since we got back. She's…she's really gone, isn't she?"

Ulrich glanced at his friend again as the boy raised his head enough to look him in the eye. He was startled by Odd's appearance. His skin was pale and his bloodshot eyes were surrounded by dark rings.

He looked like a ghost.

Ulrich clenched his fist to stop his hand from trembling and took a deep breath. "No, Odd," he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "She's not gone. She'll never be gone."

"How can you possibly know that?" Odd asked, horrible sadness apparent in his voice. "How can you know?"

"I don't," Ulrich said. "You just have to believe in her. I bet she's already trying to fight her way out!"

Odd looked up into his best friend's hazel eyes. "Yeah," he said. "I guess you're right…"

"Come on," Ulrich said, grabbing Odd's arm. "Let's get you some food. You always feel better after a meal."

Odd didn't resist. He just stood up and let himself be dragged from the room.

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First, there was nothing. Everything was black.

"Where am I?"

A question was asked, but never answered. Slowly, hearing and sight returned, but revealed nothing new.

"Where am I?"

The unanswered question was repeated, but silence was the only answer.

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"So, let's start with what we know," Jeremie said as they all ate breakfast. Of the remaining five people in their group, the only member not present was Yumi, as she ate breakfast at home before walking to school. "First: XANA activated a tower and used it to possess Kirsten. Since she's been to Lyoko several times, she should have been immune. However, she wasn't. Also, when she was possessed, her clothes changed…"

"So XANA used a different type of possession, right?" Aelita asked him.

"Exactly. So XANA either discovered a new method to possess people, or somehow Kirsten was special for some reason."

"Special how?" Ulrich asked as he tried to coax Odd into eating. The blond's usual exuberance had disappeared when Kirsten did, as had his appetite.

"I don't know," Jeremie admitted. "Anyway, let's move on. Next: XANA seems to have left Lyoko."

"What?!" Ulrich exclaimed. His eyes widened and he looked around hurriedly, hoping that nobody had heard his outburst. Luckily, the noise level in the Cafeteria was high enough to drown out even his yell.

"He's right," Aelita explained. "XANA left Lyoko and the supercomputer altogether, right before Lyoko was deleted. We think it retreated somewhere on the Internet, though we don't know where."

Odd tuned out the next few parts of conversation, staring instead at the empty sixth seat at their table. He could see Kirsten sitting there, laughing at something or drinking far too much coffee. He could hear her talking and laughing. Still, she wasn't there. She was missing.

She was gone.

"And last: there might be a way—" Jeremie started to say, though he was interrupted by a high-pitched voice from behind him.

"Hey Odd, where's your _girlfriend_?" Sissi asked mockingly. "Did she break up with you like everybody else?"

"Odd," Ulrich hissed to his friend. "_Don't_ do anything! Just ignore her!"

Odd clenched his fists and started shaking with suppressed anger.

"Oh, you're shaking!" Sissi exclaimed delightedly. "Are you scared of something? Are you scared that you're precious girlfriend might not like you any more? Huh?"

"Shut up, Sissi," Ulrich said. "He's not exactly having the best day. None of us are."

"So you _did_ break up!" she screeched. She would have probably gone on, but Odd cut her off when he stood up, spun around, and punched her in the face as hard as he could.

"_You're wrong,_" he snarled at her. "You're such a—"

"ODD DELLA ROBBIA!!!"

Odd's angry expression remained on his face as he turned around to face Jim.

"I have _never_ seen you do something like that! You may be the worst prankster in the entire school, but you've never gone that far!"

Ulrich sighed and rested his forehead in one hand. It hadn't even been a day, and already everybody was getting all wound up. Odd was obviously the worst, for the most obvious reasons. Still, Kirsten had been their friend, and they were all angry. He glanced up at Aelita, who had been half-way out of her seat when Odd punched Sissi. Maybe she would have done the same, if Odd hadn't beaten her to it. She had been very close to Kirsten too. Ulrich knew that Odd would only be the first person to take out their anger, frustration, and sadness on someone else, unless they did something soon.

They had _all_ lost someone important when Kirsten had been taken by XANA.

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She took a moment to observe her prison. That's what it was: a prison. It was her jail cell. Never mind the fact that it was easily the size of a high school gym. There were no entrances, no exits, and no windows. There was light, but it came from nowhere and equally illuminated the cavernous room.

Kirsten looked down at herself and saw that she was dressed in her usual Lyoko clothing. The naginata was strapped to her back. She glanced back up and noticed that the room looked a little like Carthage did, but the walls, floor, and ceiling were black instead of blue, and light blue indented lines ran around on all surfaces. Small dots of white light traveled on each line.

In the center of the room was an odd contraption. On the floor was the familiar XANA symbol, etched in glowing red lines. Above it, a small metal ball floated in the air, with four segmented "legs" protruding from it.

She stood up slowly and continued looking at the machine. She felt a strange tugging sensation and gasped when she saw that her feet were slowly sliding forward. She was moving towards the thing in the middle of the room, and she couldn't do anything about it!

Finally, her feet stopped directly on top of the central circle of the XANA symbol on the ground. It flashed a brighter red, and she heard a lot of loud clicks. Soon, she knew why. The four legs of the metal ball floating above her began to move, extending down to touch her wrists and ankles. Each pole attached to one of her limbs, holding her in place just a few inches above the symbol.

"XANA…" she hissed as a black cloud materialized in front of her. She tried to move, but she could barely squirm at all.

"_**You cannot escape,"**_said a voice from within the cloud. It echoed around the room and made her head ache with its intensity.

"Oh yeah?" she asked. "Watch me."

She tried to move again, but the legs holding her sparked and sent electricity coursing through her. Even though she was virtualized, she could still feel horrible pain. It felt like her body was being ripped apart! Her body lost all of its texture and changed into a simple wireframe, like she was about to be devirtualized. She didn't notice as she screamed in agony. She had only one thought before she succumbed to the darkness.

_I'm sorry...everyone..._

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Jeremie sat in front of the supercomputer terminal, completely stumped. He had _no_ idea how to get everybody into the Digital Sea. They had to be protected from the sea itself or they would be deleted, but they also needed to be able to access their weapons in case there were other enemies in the Sea.

The computer beeped, and a file opened. Jeremie looked up and pushed his glasses back into place. He looked closely at the rotating wireframe on the screen.

"That's it! I've got it!"

"Got what?" Odd asked immediately, full of hope.

"I know how you can get into the Digital Sea!" Jeremie exclaimed. "It'll just take a bit of work…"

"How did you figure it out?" Aelita asked as she came over to look at the monitor.

"Well, somehow, Franz Hopper sent this file to me. If we just add this to the vDNA conversion program…"

Aelita listened intently, while the other three gave up trying to understand what Jeremie was trying to say and just waited. After a few moments, Aelita nodded and agreed that his plan might work.

The four Lyoko Warriors wasted no time in running to the elevator and going down to the scanner room. They all wanted to find their missing member.

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Ulrich was the first to appear in the virtual world. He landed on a small, metallic, circular platform a few feet above the Digital Sea. He looked down at himself and saw that he was dressed in a jumpsuit with his usual color scheme, with dark gray gloves, boots, and shoulder pads. Instead of just one sword, he had two sheathed blades attached to his back.

He drew both blades and spun them in his hands. "I'm good to go, Jeremie," he said, "but how will this help us in the Digital Sea?"

"You'll see," Jeremie said as he virtualized the others. Soon, Aelita, Yumi, and Odd appeared and fell to the platform. They were all wearing jumpsuits as well. Aelita's was in several shades of pink. Yumi's was dark red, and Odd's was, of course, purple. He still had his tail as well. However, he also had—

"Oh, your ears are so cute!" Aelita exclaimed. Odd had two purple cat ears poking out from his hair. His eyes widened and he reached up to feel them as Ulrich and Yumi started laughing.

"Guys," Jeremie announced, "we should hurry. Anyway, all of you, look at your right glove."

Ulrich held up his right hand and looked at it. "And what?" he asked. "All I see is a white dot."

"Press it."

Everybody shrugged and did as they were told. A wireframe appeared around their heads and materialized into helmets with visors that covered their faces. They matched the color schemes of their suits.

"There," Jeremie said. "Now your bodies are entirely covered, so you should be protected from the Digital Sea."

"Only one way to find out!" Odd exclaimed before jumping into the Sea. The others shrugged and followed him into the unknown.

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**_I am SO sorry it took so long. Rest assured that the next chapter will take much less time. The next chapter, however, is the final chapter of Code:Changes Reloaded. Before you start yelling and screaming though, let me tell you that I am planning a sequel story to pick up right where this one ends. I just wanted to separate it into two parts. I'm warning you though, I plan to introduce some more major OCs. I'm sorry, but I had an idea and I decided to run with it. You'll see when I start writing part two of this story, which has no title at the moment. I'll let you know what the title is when I finish the final chapter of Reloaded._**

**_Anyway, please review! I'll have Chapter 11 up some time between later today and New Years, hopefully. I'm going to try to finish it before Christmas Day, or I'll be too distracted._**


	11. From Alpha to Omega

_**Okay, seriously, WHY AREN'T YOU GUYS REVIEWING?!?! I can see how many of you read the last chapter (32, the last time I checked), and I only got 1 review! Just ONE! Would it kill you to simply give your opinion? I accept anonymous reviews, so that's not an excuse. 8 of you have this story on your story alert, and 32 of you have me on your Author Alert! Please please PLEASE review! I'm sorry to say this, but I will not post the next story until I have at least a few reviews, or maybe more! So please review!**_

_**After this chapter, there may be a bit of a wait before I get the new story up anyway. I'll try to do it this month, though it isn't likely, no matter how many of you review. Anyway, I'll stop holding you up here and let you read!**_

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_**Chapter 11 –**__** From Alpha to Omega**_

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"Well, this is…different…"

Odd had to agree with Ulrich's assessment. They were in a place that looked almost like Carthage, but also completely different. For one thing, they were underwater. Everything was a darker blue than the light blue of Carthage and glowing white lines connected the blocks scattered around the empty sea.

Aelita looked up at Lyoko…or what was left of it. She saw an immense bubble floating in the water that had once contained an entire virtual world. Now, the world was gone, replaced only by a platform a few feet from the edge of the bubble.

"Connecting Holosphere system," Jeremie announced. "There, I can see you now. Congratulations guys! You're surfing the net!"

"We're actually _swimming_ the net," Odd muttered, showing a trace of his old humor, "but you're close enough. How exactly do we find Kirsten?"

"Easy," Jeremie replied. "You see, virtual entities leave behind a distinct trail of virtual DNA when they move about in the Digital Sea. So, all we have to do is lock on to her trail and follow it right back to where she is right now! As for freeing her…well…I still have to work on that."

"Go ahead then," Yumi said. "Work your magic, Einstein. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say I have no idea what you were trying to tell us and I don't particularly care."

They drifted for a while, waiting for Jeremie to do…whatever he was doing. Odd was the first to discover that he could move himself just by thinking of the direction he needed to go. When he thought _forward_, he moved forward, jets of bubbles shooting out of his boots to propel him. Eventually, all four of them were doing somersaults and flips in the virtual water.

"Got it," Jeremie announced. "I'm uploading the trajectory. Just follow the glowing green line."

Aelita smiled as a line appeared on her helmet visor, stretching off into the distance. "I see it, Jeremie," she replied. "Let's go!"

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Jeremie smiled as he watched his friends' progress on the Holosphere. They were speeding through a huge ocean that stretched off into infinity in all directions. He typed a few commands on the terminal and watched as the view changed, showing what looked like Lyoko before its destruction.

"Hmm," he said. "That's odd."

It was then that he noticed a few subtle differences. He hit a few more keys and a window popped up. It contained just a few words:

_Lyoko__ – Omega Server_

"No way…" he mumbled.

Then the computer started beeping.

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"What was that, Jeremie?" Yumi asked.

"Never mind that!" Jeremie exclaimed. "You have mantas headed towards you! There are…five of them!"

"Oh, wonderful," Ulrich said. "Anyway, Aelita, you get back and try not to get hit. Come on guys!"

"No," Aelita said. She shot past them despite the exclamations of the others. A moment later, they saw why. She had pulled what looked like a long dagger from somewhere and sliced open a manta. Just like that, there were only four left.

"How…" Odd trailed off.

"I asked Jeremie to give me some kind of weapon," Aelita explained. "I have a pair of daggers now, so I'm not completely defenseless any more."

Odd grinned and shot off towards another manta. It shot at him, but he dodged each shot and aimed at the manta. All five of his arrows missed, and he was forced to veer off to avoid more lasers.

Meanwhile, Ulrich and another manta were engaged in a complicated dance of attacks and dodges. He didn't have the advantage of firing at a distance that the manta had, and the mantas seemed to maneuver better than usual. It was probably because of the water. Altogether, it resulted in a stalemate.

Aelita and Yumi had teamed up on the last two mantas. They had managed to defeat one, but the other was still giving them trouble. Finally, Yumi caught one of the fins with her fan, slowing it down long enough for Aelita to come up and stab it right in the center of the XANA symbol. They turned to watch the boys just as Ulrich managed to defeat his own manta. Odd lost a few life points, but he took care of his as well.

"Well, _that_ was exciting," Aelita breathed, after being involved in her first actual fight. "But let's not get distracted."

The rest agreed and turned around to continue. However, they froze in place and stared at the massive object in front of them. It was another silvery, translucent bubble. The line lead right to it.

"Jeremie?" they all asked.

"Yeah, I know," Jeremie said. "It seems to be another Lyoko. To be exact, it's an instance of Lyoko on another supercomputer. It's different though. None of the five sectors are like the ones on the Lyoko _we_ knew."

"Well, let's not waste time debating!" Odd shouted as he shot towards the bubble at top speed. The others shrugged and followed him.

Odd broke through the bubble and started to fall. He eventually landed on the ground. He tapped the white circle on his glove and the helmet disappeared. He looked around and his eyes grew wide.

"Where…are we?" he murmured.

"Welcome to the Volcanic sector of Omega Lyoko," Jeremie announced. It was a fitting name too. Like the sectors of their own Lyoko before its destruction, it was a web of interconnected platforms. However, they were black and most of them had black volcanoes spewing lava and smoke. The lava ran off the platforms, but faded out of existence before reaching the Digital Sea. The sky was filled with smoke and the air was hazy.

They could see a few towers in the distance, glowing their usual blue-white color. They were dimmed though, since there was a ton of smoke between the towers and the Lyoko Warriors.

Odd scanned the landscape and concluded that there was nothing of interest within sight. "So, what now?" he asked.

Suddenly, he noticed a dark silhouette appear in the smoke. He watched in confusion as it approached. It seemed to be a girl dressed in a black jumpsuit similar to the ones he and his friends were wearing. Her hair was brown and pulled back into a ponytail. A red XANA symbol was visible across her chest. Finally, he noticed that she had a long pole with a blade attached to her back. He realized who she was before she looked up. When she did, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Kirsten!" he shouted. "Kirsten! Fight it! Fight XANA!"

He ran towards her. The others gasped.

"No!" Ulrich shouted as he followed his best friend. "Odd! It's a trap!"

"Odd…" Kirsten whispered blearily as Odd stopped in front of her. Ulrich stood only a few feet behind him. "Odd…save me…"

"I'm here," Odd said, his voice shaking. "Kirsten, I'm here and I won't leave!"

He pulled her into a hug and she hugged him back, holding her naginata in one hand.

_Wait, when __did she grab__ her— _Ulrich thought, though he cut off his own musing when Kirsten's expression twisted into a malicious grimace and Odd was devirtualized. She hefted her weapon and spun towards Ulrich, who was too surprised to defend himself and was also devirtualized. Kirsten smirked.

"Aelita, Yumi, be careful!" Jeremie warned, sounding horrified. "Ulrich and Odd haven't come out of the scanners on this side! I…I don't know where they are! I have to find them! What if they…"

Kirsten's smirk grew into a twisted grin as Jeremie trailed off, afraid that his unspoken guess would be right. "Two down," she growled, her voice full of malice.

Aelita and Yumi pulled out their weapons and glared at their most hated enemy, who wore the look of one of their greatest friends.

"Two to go…"

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_**I know… I'm sorry to end it here. I hate reading something that ends with a cliffhanger just as much as you do, but I had to do it. Rest assured that the next story will start some time in early January, or maybe even late December. I plan to start it before my exams in mid-January.**_

_**So, please review and tell me how it was! I haven't written a battle scene in a while, so hopefully it was good, even if it was incredibly short. I haven't done any fluff for a while either, so I suppose I should put some in during the first few chapters of **_**Code****:Omega**_**, the sequel to this. Anyway, please please PLEASE review!!!**_


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